To Ignite the Stars
by Reign of Rayne
Summary: Two rash decisions from an engineer and a hired gun lead to a jaunt through the solar system and the uncovering of the greatest conspiracy in the history of space exploration.
1. Chapter 1

_Lord help me, I'm back on my bullshit._

* * *

**Prologue**

Marco lounged in his seat. Considering that the seat was hard, plastic, and standing at a height meant for someone a foot shorter, this was no small feat. His lounging was deliberate. If he forced himself to relax, the buzz of anxiety in the back of his mind would find no purchase in his body.

So he hoped.

His eyes, however, betrayed him to any casual observer in the café. They focused unceasingly on the datapad he had set up on the table. The support on the back of the touchscreen device meant that Marco didn't have to bend over to read the information it displayed. The left side was an endlessly scrolling program that scanned for breaking news on the Grand Line. No real stories had shown up in months; everything was about failed expeditions. On the one hand, Marco was comforted: no one had beaten him to some great discovery. On the other, he was disappointed. While the drive to explore the great unknown was at an all-time high, the Grand Line asteroid belt was simply too great an obstacle.

The right side of the datapad displayed Marco's IPEC messaging account. He had sent out a contract request to the IPSC more than a month ago, but no one had taken him up on it. The page automatically refreshed every twenty seconds. No new messages had appeared in the hour since Marco had begun staring at it.

This was, Marco reflected, about as productive as watching grass grow. But he had finished the rest of his work for the day—being an upper-level engineer in IPEC meant that he could pick and choose his responsibilities, and he'd chosen to be finished—and so had little else to do but contemplate how rash the decision to offer up a contract to the IPSC had been. Years had passed since his last voyage into space, and that had ended in disaster. Who was to say this one would be any different?

But something called him to the stars, the same thing that had compelled him to accept the position as an intern on Whitebeard's cruiser all those years ago. No one had thought the legendary IPEC pirate could be brought down; he was superhuman. And yet a wayward asteroid near the Grand Line had crippled their vessel, and Marco had been the only one to make it to an escape pod before the life support systems failed. Rescue crews had found Marco, starved and severely dehydrated, in the pod two weeks later. The limited recycling systems on the pod had converted his breath to water and oxygen, but that couldn't be maintained indefinitely, and Marco had been on the verge of death when the emergency response team rushed him to a medical bay. His memories of the last few days in that pod, alongside his rescue, were hazy. By all rights, the experience should've discouraged him from ever setting foot in a spaceship again.

And yet.

Marco sighed. His inbox dinged with a message from another engineer: the United Blues Marine Corps was launching another legal assault on them for "pirating" their technology. Marco fired back a response with the outline for their usual legal loopholes attached. The UBMC was persistent, he'd give them that. Despite the IPEC's status as a legal space exploration entity, the UBMC was determined to have a monopoly on the stars and so constantly looked for any reason at all to take the IPEC down.

It was tiring, honestly.

Marco's inbox dinged again. Expecting another email about the UBMC, Marco didn't process immediately that the sender's email wasn't an internal IPEC address. When he did, he was wary of a virus, but then he saw the extension and his heart leapt into his throat. That was an IPSC address.

Hardly daring to hope, Marco opened the message and took in the text with hungry eyes. Mental plans dusty from disuse began to rise again, and he smiled.

The stars were calling.

* * *

_**Please review.**_


	2. Chapter 2

_UBMC: United Blues Marine Corps. The marines. Generally trying to get in the way._

_IPEC: InterPlanetary Exploration Corps. The "pirates." Generally trying to discover cool stuff._

_IPSC: InterPlanetary Security Corps. Also pirates, but more generally known as mercenaries out for hire as bodyguards/security for the IPEC missions._

* * *

**Chapter 1**

_Ace_

Ace wasn't sure what to expect when he strolled into the InterPlanetary Exploration Corps headquarters. The place was constantly being remodeled to accommodate new hangars, launching and landing platforms, and personnel amenities. Just finding somewhere to park his boat had been an exercise in frustration. Getting directed to Platform A, only to be redirected to Platform D, and then to Platform E, only for all three to be completely full—and _then_ to have the monotone AI that had been directing him from his boat's computer have the audacity to affect an apologetic tone, saying that he would have to come another time—was maddening. At that point Ace had finally presented his IPSC identification card, which prompted the computer to immediately direct him to a secret, IPSC-contractor-only parking lot.

After that, Ace wasn't sure whether the inside would be a similar version of chaos or some kind of sanctum; it changed every time he visited. The elevator ride up from the aquatic lot had been swift and smooth. The elevator only had one stop: the main tram station in the center of the facility, which was the central hub of all travel from each of the eight "wings" of the building. Announcements sounded over the cacophony of conversation and movement that buzzed all the way up to the skylights built into the cavernous, domed ceiling.

More than used to noise, Ace wound his way through the crowd, keeping the brim of his orange hat tipped low. The odds of a UBMC marine being around in the IPEC headquarters were slim, but he wasn't one to take chances. Better safe than sorry, and all that.

No one paid attention to him and the oversized black duffel bag slung over his shoulder. They would probably pay much more attention if they knew that the contents of the duffel bag were collectively worth millions of beri.

Following the directions that had been sent to him, Ace hopped onto the Wing Six train. The pseudoglass doors slid shut after vocal warnings to boarding passengers, and then the train jerked into motion. Ace kept a hand looped through the handle above his head. No one else in the car—which wasn't overly crowded, despite the chaos outside—seemed inclined to pay attention to anyone else, a pattern Ace was happy to follow. The train slipped into a dark tunnel lit by soft blue lights. Ace watched the shadows in the train car flicker as the train picked up speed.

The dark tunnel abruptly opened up as the tracks went outside, revealing an expansive view of the facility and the ocean surrounding it. The tracks gently sloped down and then levelled out on their approach to Building Six. While he had the chance, Ace took in the view of the North Blue stretching out to the horizon in every direction. A few icebergs were just barely visible to the north, while hordes of ships and aircraft buzzed around the IPEC compound. More than a few of the ships were probably IPSC mercenaries, stranded after the latest remodel that destroyed the previous IPSC lot. Ace felt a flicker of sympathy.

A few subsidiary facilities occupied the nearby islands that speckled the water, but traffic around those was much lighter. Buildings Five and Seven to Ace's left and right were built on foundations that went into the water; IPEC had long ago run out of island space, but they had the money to adapt. Despite being a borderline rogue organization, there was no shortage of interest in it as an alternative way to get to space instead of the military. Ace had been fascinated by the IPEC as a child; he'd done a ton of research, trying to join up.

Too bad the IPEC'd had no interest in him.

The train went back into the dark when Building Six engulfed it. As the train slowed to a gradual stop, the tunnel expanded into a much smaller version of the central hub. Ace shouldered his bag and led the way off the train the moment the doors opened. His contractor was supposed to be waiting for him in front of the employee café.

While Ace scanned the space, he thought about the request. It had been relatively vague, and the offered money had been laughable for the danger of the mission. It was a request that no sane IPSC mercenary would accept.

But here he was. Something about the request had drawn him in. It wasn't like he needed money; after his rise to fame in his first year with the IPSC, money hadn't been an issue. After three years at the IPSC, he barely thought about it anymore. It was more of a benchmark to judge his progress and reputation.

More than a few passing IPEC engineers—identifiable by their dark blue, pocket-ridden, durable uniforms with the solar-system patch on one shoulder—gave Ace disapproving looks. He couldn't figure out if they were because of the tattoo on his arm that was visible because he was wearing a tank top, the oversized duffel, his dress in general, or the sheathed knife strapped to the outside his right thigh. IPEC engineers were weird about weapons.

Someone was waving at him. Ace waved back in acknowledgement and strode across the floor towards the café. The waving man had claimed a small, two-person table right up against the fence separating the café seating space from the main floor. Ace hopped the fence and dumped his duffel bag on the ground.

"You must be Marco," he said, all but falling into his seat. The IPEC engineer had been sticking out his hand. Ace made no move to take it, so he let it drop.

"I am," Marco said, taking his own seat. He had to awkwardly push the duffel to one side to do it.

Marco looked like the typical engineer. He had the uniform on, though his had a patch beneath the IPEC logo on his shoulder: two silver bars. He was a high-up guy. So why was he so skimpy on the payment?

"You're not paying much for a job this risky," Ace said, deciding to get right to the point. He had questions about this job, and he wanted them answered, gut feeling to say _yes_ be damned.

Marco inclined his head. "Yes, I used much of my funding to purchase a ship and supplies. Besides, I don't want someone who is just doing this for the payment yoi."

Ace didn't let any emotion show on his face. Apparently, Marco had a verbal tic. "What kind of ship?"

"F22 Sloop," Marco replied, and Ace's expression of shock got away from him. "Latest slip drive, too, and shielding." Marco turned smug. "I'm not as desperate as you seem to think."

"I never said desperate," Ace replied. His mind, however, was focused on working with an F22 Sloop. The Sloop line in general was known for phenomenal dogfighting capabilities and maneuverability, and the F22 was being hailed by critics everywhere as the next level of versatile interplanetary travel. Ace's hands itched with the urge to fly it. "Why not put that in the job description? You would've gotten a lot more interest."

Marco shrugged. "I wasn't looking for some adrenaline junkie yoi."

Because the contract had not been made official yet, Ace refrained from pointing out that he _was_ an adrenaline junkie. He just happened to be one who could pick and choose among potential rushes.

"You were also sparse on the details in general," Ace said. He toed the duffel bag. "Which is why I brought everything. I'd like a bit more info before we get to anything official."

"Of course," Marco said with the air of someone trying to appear in control.

"Is this your first contract with IPSC?" Ace asked while he leaned back in his chair. Marco, in the middle of pulling up the appropriate documents on his datapad, barely paused.

"I have experience with IPSC workers."

"That's a no, then."

Marco spun the datapad and slid it across. "There are the details yoi. If you still have questions after reading, I can answer them here."

Ace took the datapad and looked it over while he propped his feet up on the table. The vague "long-term" of the contract request he'd seen at the IPSC headquarters had been replaced by a timeline of two to four years. Fairly standard for a space mission, but Ace had rarely done missions much longer than a year before. He kept that fact to himself and kept reading. The vague "exploring the Grand Line" was now "taking samples of asteroids" and "cataloguing movement patterns" and even "investigating local astral bodies." From experience, Ace knew that "astral bodies" could refer to anything from an asteroid to an entire planet.

"This is still vague," Ace said while he skimmed down to the resources and funding sections. His eyebrows shot up when he saw how much Marco had set aside for resupplying. The engineer had spacefaring experience, that was for sure. Ace had seen many a newbie laughably undershoot how much they needed to budget for fuel and food. He reached the personnel section. "And you're listed as the only non-security crewmember. It would just be us two."

"Yes," Marco said.

"Risky," Ace summed up, tossing the datapad back onto the table. It clattered and slid over to Marco, who put a hand down to stop it.

"I'm not hearing a refusal."

Ace closed his eyes and sighed. Then he pulled his feet off the table, leaned forward, and looked Marco right in the eye. "Listen. I've seen ships manned with the best crews this galaxy has ever seen get torn apart in the Grand Line. No one makes it to the New World."

"I'm not trying to get to the New World."

"But you're planning to hang out at the place that weeds out _everyone who tries_. That's asking for trouble."

To Ace's surprise, Marco levelled him with a hard look. "Either you're accepting this contract or you're not. I don't need the lecture yoi. I know the risks."

Humbled, Ace looked at Marco in a new light. Despite his cushy position as an upper-level IPEC engineer, he clearly had experience in space, and Ace could see part of what looked to be the top of a blue tattoo inked on his chest. And, for all that he was listening to Ace's opinions, he wasn't backing down. Ace knew he cut an intimidating figure. Marco had spine.

Ace sat back.

For all that he was criticizing, he really did want to go on this mission. It was almost exactly the kind of thing he'd wanted to do growing up. Even if they weren't travelling to the unexplored space of the New World, this still promised adventure.

"I could be a horrible person, you know," he said. Marco gave him a thin smile.

"So could I. But I read your files and reviews, Ace D. Portgas, so I believe there are worse people to take with me. Your loyalty under pressure is a repeated refrain."

Ace crossed his arms. "You did your research." And Ace hadn't. He didn't often need to; the contract meetings always gave him a rock-solid impression. He'd never been wrong before, and Marco was giving all the right signs, even if Ace could see a rocky adjustment period ahead. "And you're still comfortable with me around? I'm very…what's the word they use?"

"Aggressive?" Marco suggested dryly. "Daring? Unpredictable? Maybe. But you volunteered for this. I have to put some faith in that."

Ace stared. Then he gave in. "All right. Pass the tablet."

Marco slid the datapad back. Ace went through the contract, reviewing the terms and then signing his name at the bottom. Then he placed his ID card on the datapad. The electronics read each other and updated the information. Ace's status at IPSC would now read as "AOM," or "Away on Mission," until he returned to Oceana. Ace pocketed his ID and returned the datapad.

"Let's see this ship of yours," he said.

* * *

The F22 was small, relatively speaking, for a spaceship. It was designed with the fighter jets of old in mind and had four main sections: the cockpit, the common area, the crew quarters above the common area, and the loading bay and storage located in the rear behind the common area. The loading bay had both a floor opening and a vacuum-sealed door that could be opened to function as a ramp.

Ace, walking up the ramp, took note of the supplies already stacked up and strapped down in the bay. They were organized neatly, with food in one section, spare parts in another, first aid in a third, and so on. He glanced over his shoulder to where Marco was talking with another engineer about flight arrangements. Seeing that the IPEC tech was busy, Ace kept going up the ramp.

"You've been busy," he muttered, dropping his duffel off in the loading bay. Everything about the F22's specs was amazing, but it could use some work on décor. The loading bay was some thirty feet wide by forty deep and colored in grays and blacks; the back-left corner had been converted to a small medical bay walled off by pseudoglass and armed with a medical droid. The back right corner had a sturdy airlock embedded in it by design. The common room through the door in the back was Plate gray, but there was plenty of room for customization. Ace made a mental note to swing by one of the IPEC's paint shops before they departed.

The holotable in the center of the common room had 3D holographic capabilities and contained the storage for the shipboard AI within it. Shipboard AI were always simple things, lacking the personality and human characteristics of more experimental models. It would be perfect for getting them where they needed to go, though, and that was all Ace really wanted.

The cockpit gleamed with technology. Ace hovered over the main pilot's chair, a childish need pulling him towards it like a magnet. Ace squeezed the seat's shoulder and turned. "Later," he promised.

Unsurprisingly, the crew quarters were relatively cramped. After climbing up the ladder built into the wall of the common room to reach the upper deck, Ace was…not underwhelmed, but not impressed either. There were five total rooms for individuals that could be retrofitted to hold up to four people each. Marco had turned one of the spare rooms into a kitchen, another into a small gym, and the last into a kind of relaxation or game room. The common area had comfortable chairs built into the walls that could be extended to the holotable, but this room had actual couches and a television built into one wall, not to mention a couple of sturdy windows. If Ace looked at this room, and this room alone, he could almost convince himself that he was in a luxury craft.

His room was smaller than the two auxiliary rooms, which was no surprise. It was about the size of the room he had in the IPSC headquarter's dorms for mercenaries who spent minimal time on-planet. Still, it had a bed in the left corner with the headboard up against the back wall and a hammock hung across the other corner. Ace was almost touched by Marco's generosity. There was a built-in closet and dresser against the right-hand wall, as well as a separate storage space for other odds and ends. Other than that, the room was plain. The sheets were gray, the walls were gray, the floor was gray.

It needed work.

After moving his duffel to the room, Ace let Marco know that he was going shopping and headed for the train platform.

* * *

_**Please review.**_


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 2**

_Marco_

While the mercenary went to do whatever shopping he thought was necessary, Marco finished up departure preparations with Simon. He could see the other man's disapproval in his eyes, and so, while Marco filled out the last of the forms, he decided to address the elephant in the hangar.

"I know you think it's reckless," he said, "but it's something I need to do yoi."

Simon sighed. "I respect you, Marco, I really do, but I…it worries me to see you doing something so rash. And alone, no less."

"I have the mercenary."

Simon snorted. "Everyone knows you can only trust IPSC mercenaries as far as you can pay them."

"Maybe," Marco said. He signed the last line, dated it, and handed back the datapad. "Time will tell."

Simon stared at the datapad. Then he stuck out his hand and looked Marco in the eye. "You're the best superior I've ever had. You'd better make it back here."

"I do plan on it," Marco said, shaking Simon's hand.

Finished with the bureaucratic side of things, Marco—alongside a team of droids and shipwrights—did one last examination of the F22. The extensive modifications had been hell on his savings, but they had been worth it. True, there were more appropriate vessels for research expeditions, but with the way the UBMC had been bullying IPEC lately, Marco wanted the ability to fight back. And the twin laser cannons under each wing, heat-seeking energy missile launchers mounted next to those cannons, and nose-mounted autocannon certainly offered that option.

The sleek matte gray exterior reflected little light. Marco had put the IPEC logo on the back of the loading ramp so it would be visible when the bay door closed, as well as on either side of the cockpit. The F22 also came standard with matte black sections just to add to the overall design.

Marco rested one hand against the Plate that coated the entire exterior. Durable, radiation-blocking, and temperature-change-resistant, Plate was one of the revolutionary discoveries that had allowed for extended space travel. Marco would be putting his life in its hands one more time.

The F22 came up green for departure. Marco went to contact Ace, only to realize that he never got anything other than the mercenary's email address.

Well, he had hours before their departure slot came up. Marco sent a message anyway and, after double-checking their supplies, he went to the shop built into the side of the hangar.

"Ah, your jumpsuit is ready, one moment!" The shop employee disappeared into a back room. Marco waited, his eyes roaming over the other jumpsuits lining the walls. Most of them were the standard IPEC jumpsuit: dark blue, with a simple computer system built in to monitor the suit's status and provide a link back to the ship. Marco figured that, if he was going on a mission this risky, the standard space suit wouldn't be enough.

Besides, he had money to burn.

"Here you are, sir," the employee said as they emerged from the back with a jumpsuit hung over one arm. "The FlexTech insertion and recoloring went very smoothly, you know. Give us a review the next time you're on planet."

"I'll think about it," Marco said, accepting the jumpsuit. Once he was back on the F22, he shook it out and gave it a look. The SunCloth had been dyed purple on the upper half but kept the trademark dark blue on the bottom. The supply belt was a lighter blue with a few new loops for devices and tools. The entire jumpsuit was heavier than it had been thanks to the new gel FlexTech lining, but still relatively light and flexible. The attached boots had been given more pronounced treads, and the integrated screen on the left wrist had been updated with better brightness and a self-cleaning display.

"Well aren't you sittin' pretty?"

Marco turned and saw Ace striding up the ramp with a hovering storage unit trailing behind him.

"I could say the same to you."

Ace shrugged and walked right past him. "If you're giving me my own room, I'm gonna make it mine. And gray really isn't my color."

"I didn't realize that such a famous mercenary was so vain."

"You read my file, didn't you?"

His nonchalant attitude didn't hold when the hover unit stopped a foot away from the doorway into the common room, sensors beeping a warning. Marco held back a smug tone as best as he was able, but what came out was something much dryer.

"You unit's a bit too big there yoi."

Ace, face reddening just enough for Marco to notice, opened the unit and removed a box. He then turned and carried it into the common room without a word.

Marco hung his jumpsuit up in the designated locker to his right. "So much for the suave soldier," he muttered. Once the jumpsuit and accompanying equipment—helmet, emergency repair kit, oxygen and power cell pack—were packed away, Marco rummaged through the nearby supply pile and pulled out his own box of décor. He nudged Ace's hovering cart out of the way with one foot and carefully picked his way over to the ladder. After attaching a small propulsor from the nearby rack to the bottom of the box, Marco pushed the box up the ladder and followed after it. Ace was waiting at the top, arms crossed.

"You can't give me flak if you're doing the same thing," he said.

Marco was unimpressed.

"Yes, I can," he said. The propulsor ran out of charge the moment Marco grabbed the box again, and he lugged the thing over to his own room. He could only assume that Ace went back to unloading his absurd amount of stuff; the mercenary didn't disturb him while Marco put up a couple of posters, an expandable pillow, and a few other odds and ends around the room. Clothing went last; on a journey like this, it was hardly the priority. He spent another several minutes bolting and strapping things down for launch.

When he was finished, Marco went back down to find that Ace had finished unloading and was staring at the common room with an appraising eye. Already wary of the mercenary's motivations, Marco paused on his way to put the now-empty box outside of the ship.

"What are you doing? We only have an hour before takeoff."

Ace glanced at him. "Relax. It's nothing."

Marco very much doubted that. He said as much, and Ace sighed.

"Your ship is boring. I'm making it better."

"I didn't realize your contract included modifications to _my_ ship yoi."

Ace spun on his heel, picked up the box on the holotable, put it on a propulsor, and headed up the ladder. "We got years together, Marco," he called down. "You'd better get used to me."

Marco pressed his lips together. He would not let this moment be ruined by some reckless mercenary. Ace was simply hired help; Marco wouldn't let his attitude bother him.

With that in mind, Marco went through the final preparations, making sure things were locked down and that they had all their supplies as well as several other last-minute tasks. Ace joined him towards the end, familiarizing himself with the ship and its layout. The minutes finally wound down to zero, and the F22 was taken on its tracks to the central launch facility. Ace had his jumpsuit on, per procedure, as did Marco. They strapped into the two cockpit seats, one behind the other, with Marco in front. Ace, as copilot, ran through a few last diagnostic checks while Marco responded to the automated prompts on his screen to get through the last of the launch procedure.

The clamps fastened onto the ship with shuddering thumps, and then the ship began to tilt. Marco's heartbeat picked up as the gray interior of the IPEC headquarters gave way to the circle of blue sky above. Warning lights blared, final instructions sounded, and then, quite suddenly, the F22's engines ignited.

G-forces pinned Marco to his seat as the F22 blasted upwards. Ace's whoop of excitement carried over the radio, and once Marco got over the feeling of his stomach being stuck two hundred feet below, he found euphoria taking its place. The sky grew and grew until it swallowed everything; rear camera displays showed the IPEC headquarters shrinking to nothing as the F22 shot through the clouds.

Light blue gave way to dark blue gave way to black, and they were in space. Breathless, Marco looked around. It was just as incredible as the first time.

_"Done gawking?"_ Ace said over the comms. Until the ship's systems gave the all-clear, they were required to keep their jumpsuits and helmets on. The artificial gravity wouldn't kick in for at least another ten minutes. _"We've got places to be."_

Jarred out of his memories, Marco began inputting the coordinates. "You're rather impatient."

_"Maybe," _Ace replied after a bit. While clarity over the radio channel was pretty good, Marco assumed the odd tone to Ace's voice was due to slight interference from Oceana's orbiting satellite network.

The ship's computer interpreted the coordinates, asked for confirmation, and then began to fire the engines once more. The light signifying the necessity of jumpsuits flicked from red to green, and Marco removed his helmet and glanced behind him.

"It's a long flight," he said. He could only assume that Ace was looking at him; the mercenary's helmet had a full-face visor that was completely opaque. Ace nodded and got up, popping off his own helmet. He grinned.

"I'm just going to say it again, for emphasis," he said. "This trip is insane." His grin widened. "I look forward to working with you."

With that, he turned and went to the hold, presumably to remove his jumpsuit.

Marco sighed and reclined in the pilot's chair.

* * *

_**Please review.**_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 3**

_Ace_

Space was peaceful. In moments like these, anyway—moments in transit. Moments when Ace could throw on his jumpsuit, hook up the cable, and let the magnets in his suit take care of the rest. With the distance between cosmic bodies, Ace could stare into the endless black all he wanted, without interruption.

_"Ace."_

Most of the time, anyway. They were travelling in slipspace, too, which meant that the black was mostly streams of color. Thatch had been the one to show him that it was perfectly safe to leave the ship in slipspace, provided they didn't stray too far from the ship's surface. Sighing, Ace turned on broadcasting on his end of the radio. "Yeah?"

_"I'm picking up a distress signal."_

A week into their adventure together, and Ace already knew that Marco wouldn't give more information than that until Ace dragged his ass back inside. Ace disengaged the magnets on his back but activated the ones on his hands so that he could pick his way back across the roof of the F22 and down to the airlock on its right side. The door to the airlock opened when Ace input the code, and Ace slipped inside. With the door still open, Ace started the mechanism to retract the cable. Once the cable was completely inside, the door slid shut and Ace unclipped the end of the cable from the appropriate hook on his jumpsuit's belt.

_"Repressurization commencing," _a computerized voice intoned. Oxygen and other gases hissed into the room through vents. Ace took the time to run a diagnostics check on his jumpsuit; everything came up green.

While it wasn't unheard of for vessels in slipspace to pick up distress signals, it wasn't common. The weird fields that formed around a traveling craft tended to heavily interfere with any messages. What had Marco heard that was enough to warrant this much of a reaction?

_"Commencing detoxification protocols."_

Ace glanced up. "Detox?"

A stream of water hit him in the face. Well, the visor. Ace staggered back a step, only for more jets to hit him on all sides. The sensors in his suit picked up the chemicals in the water; it was a cleansing fluid.

Once clean and dry, Ace was finally able to open the secondary door and step properly into the hold. He hadn't even been on a planet, so why the detox? Fuckin' automatic protocols.

He trudged over to his locker and began the process of removing his jumpsuit. The helmet went onto the rack above the hook for the actual suit, the oxygen and water pack just below that, and then he got to the jumpsuit's seals. Fortunately, he'd had plenty of practice, and made quick work of them.

"Take your time yoi," Marco said from the doorway into the common room. Ace pulled his right leg out of the jumpsuit and then shook out the suit just to be petty.

"It'd take me a lot longer if I was wearing all of my weapons," he said. He hung up his suit and then turned. "So, a distress signal?"

Marco gestured for Ace to follow. Ace did. Marco stopped at the holotable and Ace took up a position across from him. Marco hit a button, and a 2D image of soundwaves began to roll across the table's surface.

_"[kkkt]EC facility, we need [kkkt] marines. Harrow's Fjord, Bystal. I repeat, this is an SOS message from an IPEC facility, we [kkkt] attack by marines."_

The message repeated a few more times before Marco stopped it. Ace crossed his arms, regarding the stilled image with narrowed eyes. The information displayed on the holotable showed that this message had gone out on all IPEC channels, a practice that was generally forbidden in case some channels were compromised.

"Well?"

Ace glanced up. "Well what? It's a distress signal."

"We should respond."

Ace snorted. "Respond? To a distress signal like this? No. That's asking for trouble. My job is to keep you safe. That?" He gestured to the table. "That's a no go."

Marco crossed his arms. "I should rephrase. We're going to help."

"The hell we are."

"And if I order you?"

"I can refuse if I think your orders are reckless and dangerous," Ace shot back. "IPSC policy. Your authority doesn't mean shit when you don't know what you're talking about."

Marco didn't back down. "I will not leave my friends to die."

"Do you even know them?"

"There is this concept, in the IPEC, called loyalty." Marco gave Ace a flat look. "You should learn some."

Indignant anger sparked in Ace's core, but he held it down. He even held down the acerbic comment that bubbled to his tongue, swallowing it and saying instead: "Fine, then. We go to die. Do you even know how to hold a weapon?"

Marco's expression didn't change. "Yes. Plug in the coordinates; I am going to make a plan."

_Oh boy, _Ace thought while he poorly hid an eyeroll and headed for the cockpit, _the techhead is gonna make the plan._

"Fuckin' scientists thinking they know everything," Ace muttered while he dropped into the main pilot's seat, pulled the adjustable screen closer, and typed in the coordinates. Harrow's Fjord was a massive fissure in the northern hemisphere of the planet Bystal. Ace had never been to the IPEC facility there, or on Bystal at all. It was a nice enough place from what he'd heard; mostly land, with a few large settlements and a well-functioning spaceport in the south. The north was generally left alone due to the near-constant seismic activity. Having a base there was…ambitious.

Ace spent longer than he needed to in that chair. One week, and they were already doing something reckless. Ace should've known that any IPEC scientist willing to go on an expedition like this with only one other person wouldn't care at all about things like common sense, or, y'know, _living_.

Thinking about that, Ace pulled out his slate device and opened up his email. No new messages from Luffy; that was good, in a way. The kid was still in basic training at IPEC. He had a ways to go before he was ready for space travel. Ace sent a message of his own, updating Luffy on the mission without giving any concrete details. So many precautions against the marines. It was annoying.

And he still wasn't ready for Luffy to find out that his older brother wasn't actually with the IPEC, that only the IPSC had been willing to take him in. The kid would find out eventually, Ace knew that, but he wasn't going to hurry the process along if he could help it.

"Ace," Marco called.

"Yeah, coming," Ace grumbled. He slipped his slate back into the pocket of his shorts and joined Marco at the holotable once more. This time, Marco had a three-dimensional render of Harrow's Fjord rotating over the table.

"Where'd you get the scans for this?" Ace asked, scrutinizing the image. The base was about halfway down the cliff face, with a single landing platform extending out. The only way in was down the fissure—and the only way out.

"I have connections," Marco replied.

"These are reliable?"

Marco ignored him. Ace scowled.

"I have no doubt the marines entered here, through the landing bay," Marco said, and the offending area lit up in red. "To outside eyes, it looks like the only way."

To outside eyes? Intrigued despite his irritation, Ace scrutinized the image. "There's a secondary shaft," he noted, seeing the thin strip of lighter blue cutting through the ground and entering the back of the facility. Marco nodded.

"That's how we'll get in."

Presented with a new kind of problem, Ace's mind started working on it immediately. "This ship doesn't have stealth capabilities, so we'll have to do a helljump and call the ship down when we need it if we want to go undetected."

Marco blanched. He hadn't been expecting that. "A helljump? You mean an orbital drop? That's—"

"The only way we get down there undetected," Ace finished. "IPEC facilities like this don't scan for man-sized objects in-atmosphere. The jetpacks in our jumpsuits are more than enough to slow us down in Bystal's gravity. It's half of Oceana's—you'll survive. And the suits can handle atmospheric entry."

Marco stared at the blueprints. Finally, he sighed. "All right. But you will have to guide me through it yoi."

"First time?"

Marco shot Ace a baleful look. "How many times have _you_ done this?"

Ace grinned. "Not including this time? Fifty-two." It was well worth admitting when he saw the color drain out of Marco's face once more. Suddenly feeling a lot better, Ace gestured to the hologram. "So, enter through the back entrance, then what?"

"The radio signals have stopped. I can only assume that either the facility is out of power or the marines shut it off. We go in, find out what happened, get out, and I inform IPEC command."

It was a solid plan. One that would probably go to hell immediately, but a solid plan with a clear objective. "Step one is the communications room, then," Ace said. "Where is it?"

Marco lit the appropriate room up red. "I've already sent the blueprints to my jumpsuit and yours through the ship link."

"Good." Ace stood straight. "To the loading bay!" he declared with faked enthusiasm.

While Marco pulled on his not-quite-but-pretty-close-to standard IPEC jumpsuit, Ace threw on his heavily modified suit and began the long, satisfying process of arming up.

"You don't seem at all nervous about possibly fighting the marines," Marco noted while Ace checked the seals on his gloves and then clipped grenades to his belt.

"You read my file," Ace said. "I've done this before."

"On missions in which it was in the contract."

Ace checked the knife on his right bicep and then the one on his lower back to make sure they were secure in their sheaths. "Not quite. Once was just for fun." Ignoring Marco's muttered _"Just for fun,"_ Ace slid his two LG pistols into their holsters on his outer thighs and then slung his rifle over his shoulder. It immediately attached to the magnetic holster there. He then attached spare ammo cells to his belt and did one last check of the combination suit repair and medical kit strapped to his lower left thigh.

"Got enough weapons yoi?" Marco asked dryly.

"Never," Ace replied. Satisfied, he plucked his helmet from the cubby and slid it over his head. The HUD flickered to life. As the suit linked with his weapons and neural implant, Ace called up the IPEC facility's plans. Confirming them against the ones in his memory, Ace dismissed them and turned to Marco, who had also put on his helmet. "Radio check," Ace said.

_"Confirmed," _Marco replied.

"Wow, you even know the lingo," Ace said. He couldn't see Marco's expression, but the scientist's droll tone came through crystal-clear.

_"This isn't my first rodeo."_

"Color me shocked." Ace tapped the digital display on his left wrist. When it responded, he set it to display the blueprints and, once they were inside the facility, Ace's location within it. While his attention was on his wrists, Ace double-checked the grappling hook on the top of his right wrist. That done, he gave the thrusters on his back a quick test. Things came back green. He saw Marco doing the same. It was rare, but an improperly-mounted O2H2O-pack could interfere with the thrusters.

_"Exiting slipspace," _the ship warned over the radio. Ace activated his magnetic boots. Marco did as well, but there was only the slightest jerk when the ship rapidly decelerated. Ace spared a second to appreciate the advancements in slipspace that made instantaneously splattering on your ship's walls a thing of the past.

_"Three minutes until we get close enough to jump," _Marco said. The same information scrolled across Ace's HUD. Deactivating the magnets on his boots, Ace headed for the exit ramp. Everything in the bay was still strapped down, and there would be just enough atmosphere from the height at which they were jumping for the vacuum of space to not be a problem. Ace rolled his shoulders while pre-battle adrenaline filtered into his blood. His hands didn't shake—they never did, not anymore—and anticipation rose in his gut.

This was it.

Hardly aware of Marco beside him, Ace watched the warning light strobe as the ramp began to open. Ace braced himself against the suction, watching the countdown on his HUD. At these speeds, they needed to get the timing almost perfect. Mindful of that, Ace grabbed Marco's wrist as muted sunlight flooded the loading bay.

Before the scientist could protest, the timer hit zero and Ace threw them both out of the ship.

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	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 4**

_Marco_

_"YeeeeaaAAAAH!"_

Ace's shout did nothing to cool the instinctual terror flooding Marco's brain. Bystal's muted orange sky surrounded them, and Marco couldn't tell up from down. His stomach flipped and he wrestled for control of his nausea. Ace still had a vicelike grip on Marco's wrist, and Marco supposed he should be grateful for that. His body had locked up the moment the bay door had opened, and without Ace's interference, he probably wouldn't have been able to force himself to jump.

Still, even though he was out now, he was frozen with terror. They were hurtling through the sky at over a hundred miles an hour with barely any control.

The pressure on his wrist shifted, and suddenly Ace was beneath him, holding both of Marco's arms. For some reason, Marco got the insane impression that Ace was grinning like a lunatic underneath his jet-black helmet.

_"C'mon, techhead!" _Ace said. _"Lighten up—it's low gravity!" _He laughed at his own joke, and Marco mused that he was going to die with an adrenaline junkie laughing over his corpse. Ace suddenly pulled Marco closer, losing the lighthearted tone. _"You're not passed out, are you?" _Marco shook his head. _"I need verbal confirmation, Marco."_

"I am not passed out," Marco articulated, though it took effort. The act of speaking helped, a little. They were still spinning nauseatingly fast.

_"Good. When the altimeter on the left side of your HUD hits 1000, activate your jetpack at half power. When it hits 250, go to full power and get ready to bend your knees and roll. Understand?"_

Marco barely processed the directions, but he still nodded. Ace shook him a little, heedless of the thinning clouds and the ground hurtling up below. _"Verbal confirmation. Don't you dare pass out on me."_

Irked, Marco glared through Ace's visor. "I am not about to pass out. I understand the directions. Half at 1000, full at 250, we will hit the ground hard."

Ace was quiet for a second. Marco's helmet filtered out the noise of the wind for the most part, but he could still hear it in the background. Finally, Ace switched his grip to just Marco's wrist. _"Glad to hear it. Don't worry; the FlexTech lining in your suit will take the worst of it."_

As the numbers on the altimeter fell, Marco watched the scarred ground of Bystal grow larger and larger. Harrow's Fjord was easy to spot: a massive, dark chasm in the gray-colored ground stretching for as far as the eye could see in either direction, burrowing miles down into Bystal's pockmarked crust. Marco and Ace fell side-by-side, spread out in the recommended star pose with only Ace's grip on Marco's wrist keeping them together.

The altimeter hit 1500 and Marco heard a warning beep. A moment later, Ace's voice crackled in his ear.

_"Three…two…one…now!"_

Marco activated his jetpack. He flipped a couple of times but then stabilized so that his feet were aimed at the ground below. Ace was smoother in his switch but radiated approval. More focused on the ground than the mercenary's feelings, Marco watched the numbers tick down.

Another warning sounded at 750, and Ace counted down again.

_"Three…two…one…now!"_

Marco felt his stomach lurch when his jetpack ramped up to full power, but it was bearable, and the readout on his speedometer quickly went down. Marco barely registered Ace's grip disappearing.

All of a sudden, the ground was there. Marco hit it, felt the shock resonate up to his knees, and tucked into an inelegant roll. He came up with a groan, joints protesting. His suit had _some_ FlexTech—not nearly as much as Ace's, he was sure. Only now was his mind choosing to remind him of that fact.

Dust blew up around his visor. Technically, with Bystal's atmospheric makeup, the full jumpsuit was no longer necessary, but Marco wasn't taking any chances. Jumpsuits were body armor just as much as they were spacesuits.

His HUD still displayed his LG pistol—kept in the holster on his outer right thigh—in the lower right, and when Marco checked, the energy weapon was still secured to his leg. He let out a short sigh of relief and then glanced up to see Ace approaching. The mercenary's body language revealed absolutely no sign of discomfort from their upper-atmosphere plunge. He had his weapons holstered, and almost bounced in the low gravity.

Now that Marco was getting a good look at Ace's jumpsuit in natural light, he could appreciate just how much effort the mercenary had put into it. In addition to all of the weaponry he had strapped to his body, he also had a medrep kit on his leg and heavy-duty boots that put even Marco's upgraded pair to shame. Ace's jumpsuit pants were reminiscent of black cargo pants, loose until they tucked into his boots and held up by a heavy-duty belt that supported spare ammunition and grenades. His upper half was a blend of red and orange, but the sleeves, shoulders, and collar area were colored black. He had a red bandolier fastened across his chest that held other odds and ends. His gloves had orange grip patterns on the forefingers, thumbs, palms, and fingertips.

This was a jumpsuit built and modified for combat. Despite himself, Marco was impressed.

_"I'm not picking up hostiles nearby," _Ace said, shaking Marco out of his observations. _"We have a half-mile walk to get to your back entrance. Stay close to me. If any marines appear, shipboard or otherwise, you drop. And, no matter what your science brain tells you, you listen to my orders, understand?"_

"I understand," Marco said.

Ace nodded once and then jerked his head in the direction of Harrow's Fjord. _"Then follow me."_

The walk was long and quiet. Marco sipped water from the straw built into his helmet, which drew water from the O2H2O pack on his back. The liquid was just below lukewarm and unpleasant, but better than nothing.

When Harrow's Fjord yawned before them, a gash in the universe, Ace held up a hand.

_"Here," _he said, and knelt. Marco followed his lead. There, under a weatherproof pseudoglass cover, was a keypad. Ace glanced up. _"I don't suppose you have the access code."_

"I don't," Marco said, examining the keys. "Try one-three-one-two."

Ace did. The light blinked red. _"Nope. The hard way it is."_ He fiddled with the display on his left wrist and then pointed his wrist at the keypad. A light shone out from the end of the display monitor, which scanned the keypad. Marco waited. Ace fidgeted for the few short seconds it took for the wireless hack to finish. When the light blinked green and they heard a lock unlatch, Ace wrapped his gloved fingers around the barely-visible handle next to the keypad and heaved.

Marco didn't comment on the completely illegal hacking tech, even though he wanted to. This wasn't the time or place. Besides, it was being used for good.

A large trapdoor swung open on squealing hinges. Ace let it bang against the ground and peered down. Marco did as well; there was nothing but black and the ladder that led down into it. When he looked back up, Ace's visor was pointed in his direction.

_"After you," _Ace said with an expansive gesture. Marco rolled his eyes and swung down, beginning the long descent. His vision narrowed to the rungs just in front of his face and the roughly-carved rock behind them. After several seconds, Marco heard another squeal, and looked up just in time to see Ace's silhouette disappear as he closed the trapdoor and plunged the whole tunnel into darkness.

Marco's visor automatically flipped to night vision, giving Marco a green and grainy understanding of the world. He kept going down, the tiny map in the upper-right of his HUD tracking his progress in a weird product of cooperation between the ship and the GPS in his suit. He glanced up when he was halfway down and saw Ace's boots about two feet above his head.

It wasn't comforting.

By the time Marco hit the bottom, his arms were sore despite the reduced gravity. He stepped a little way into the tunnel so that Ace could drop down next to him.

_"I'll take point," _Ace said while he unholstered his rifle. It was a laser gun—an LG. More expensive than hardware, which fired physical bullets, but lighter and with much more ammunition per magazine and digital information chips built in and designed to sync with jumpsuit displays.

"Don't let me stop you," Marco said, feeling a little underequipped with just his LG pistol. Still, it was better than nothing.

With Ace leading, they trekked down the tunnel for almost a hundred yards before they came to the door that actually led into the facility. With rough-hewn rock pressing in on all sides, Ace crouched in front of the keypad and repeated his earlier trick. This time, it took significantly longer. Marco kept his gaze on the tunnel they'd just walked through. As unlikely as it was, he felt obligated to watch for pursuit. The motion sensors in his suit weren't all-powerful and had a range of only about ten yards.

Finally, he heard the door unlock.

_"Here we go," _Ace muttered. He glanced back at Marco. _"Stay close."_

"Understood," Marco said, sensing that he had to give, as Ace kept saying, a verbal response.

The facility was dark. Soft emergency lighting emanated from strips of luminescent material on the floor.

"They did cut the power," Marco noted.

Ace kept his rifle raised, his finger on the trigger. _"Smart move, if the IPEC scientists did what I think they did. The probably hardwired that SOS to keep sending no matter what the marines did. Shutting it off meant needing to shut down the whole facility."_

As they walked through the narrow corridors, weapons ready and steps silent, Marco wondered why the marines had attacked this base. Marco was sure that part of it was the marines' ridiculous need to stamp out any space based IPEC presence; any time they did, they could claim that space pirates had done it, despite the fact that actual, non-IPEC pirates were extremely rare. Any unsavory types tended to gravitate towards the IPSC instead. The resources required to live in space were simply too great to amass without a backing organization.

"Ace," Marco said, coming to a decision. They paused at a corner, backs to the wall, and Ace looked at him.

_"Yeah?"_

"After we check the communications hub, I want to try to access this facility's logs."

He could tell that Ace was frowning. _"Why?"_

"Something about this isn't right." Marco couldn't explain the feeling in his gut. Ace sighed.

_"All right, fine. Mark it on the map, and we'll hit it after this."_

Marco did as asked. Most of the hallways were empty, but not all. They passed bodies, cauterized wounds indicating laser fire and clear signs of a struggle. Only a few people were in jumpsuits; the attack had taken them by surprise.

Marco crouched next to one of the killed IPEC scientists. This woman had taken a laser shot to the face, and the damage was horrific. At least her death had been quick. With Ace keeping guard, Marco began to search her for her access card.

_"What are you doing?" _Ace asked.

"Access card yoi," Marco replied. "It'll be faster than you hacking your way through, and won't risk setting off any alarms. We're just lucky the doors run on a backup system."

Ace watched Marco stand up. _"Not bad, techhead."_

"Let's just keep going."

* * *

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	6. Chapter 6

_MAR: Magnetically Accelerated Round_

* * *

**Chapter 5**

_Ace_

Ace had to admit, the scientist was clearly no beginner. He'd handled the helljump well despite being nervous, and he was keeping to himself just the right amount. He didn't try to fill the silence, and he didn't fidget. He followed orders, but he wasn't stupid about it. And the keycard idea hadn't even occurred to Ace.

Damn. He was developing a small amount of respect for Marco. Time would tell whether that changed.

The entire IPEC facility was giving Ace the creeps, Marco's competence be damned. The darkness, the bodies, the silence—all of it was wearing on his nerves. He would almost prefer having enemies swarming the place, because at least then the threat would be present, instead of hanging over his head.

_"We're here," _Marco said when they reached the door. Marco went to swipe the card, only to pause. _"It's already open."_

It was, Ace realized. Only slightly ajar, but still open. Ace checked his HUD. "I'm not picking up any motion or signs of life."

Marco prepared to open the door. Ace positioned himself with his gun raised, ready to take down anything on the other side if it so much as twitched.

But when Marco opened the door, it was just more darkness, more bodies, and more silence. Ace stepped through, sweeping the room, but it was clear. Three dead scientists had fallen in here, clearly in defense of the main console. Ace holstered his rifle and set about moving their bodies out of the way while Marco checked over the console.

The scientists were all in casual clothes, and in the reduced gravity, they weren't hard to move at all. While dragging the last scientist over, Ace noticed that the man had a very nice watch in the breast pocket of his jacket. After making sure that Marco was still distracted with trying to get auxiliary power routed to the communications station, Ace removed the watch and tucked it into a pants pocket. Ace didn't really understand why the scientist had put the watch there instead of on his wrist, but he didn't care all that much either way. A luxury good like this would sell well at the next pit stop, and Ace could wire the money back to Luffy without diverting funds from his IPSC account. He could keep the charade up just a little longer.

_"Damn," _Marco muttered, standing up from where he'd been kneeling. Ace walked over to him, eyeing the panel Marco had removed and the wires underneath.

"No luck?"

_"No. We need to restore power in order to access the communications logs."_

Ace glanced at the dark monitor taking up almost the entirety of the wall. "The second we restore power, that signal is gonna come right back. The marines won't be happy that someone is poking around here."

_"I know. Stay here and be ready to turn off the signal when I get the power back online yoi."_

"Whoa, hold on," Ace said, putting up a hand. "We still haven't cleared this entire facility."

_"Despite your belief otherwise, I can hold my own. We will be in constant radio contact. Besides, you need to be here to handle the signal. If you turn it off fast enough, the marines might just think it's a glitch in their systems."_

The scientist had a point. Ace crossed his arms. "If you see trouble, you go the other way. I don't get the full payment if you get your head burned off."

_"I'll try to avoid that, then," _Marco said in a dry tone that Ace was growing very familiar with.

Marco unholstered his pistol—_good on you, techhead_—and headed out. Ace leaned against the console with his arms crossed, tracking Marco's progress on the digital display on his wrist. In theory, he could move the display to his HUD, but Ace hated having crowded vision. In combat, all he wanted to know was the direction of his ship, the state of his jumpsuit and oxygen levels, and the condition of his weaponry.

_"There are more bodies down here," _Marco said. He had gone down two floors and was almost to the control room. _"No marines yoi."_

"They always clean up their own," Ace said. "Don't want to leave evidence behind that this was anything but a pirate or raider attack. And that's exactly how you know it was the UBM-fucking-C." Ace had lost more than a few crewmates to the UBMC over the years, sometimes in raids like this, and he found the UBMC's desire to leave no evidence cowardly. Ace always owned up to his kills and the destruction he caused. That was half the reason he had such a massive target on his back. The UBMC knew exactly who had challenged them over the years.

_"Control room is locked. I'm using the keycard." _A pause. _"It opened. There…there are more bodies in here."_

"Marines must've killed them and shut the door behind them once they shut down the power," Ace said. "It's exactly the kind of backwards logic they love."

_"Why not close the communications room door, then?"_

Ace didn't have an answer for that. He suddenly got a very, very bad feeling. "Marco, don't—"

A distant boom nearly threw Ace from his feet. The whole facility shook. "Marco!" Ace hissed into the radio. "Marco, what the hell was that? Marco!"

A harrowing second later, a groan sounded through the channel. _"Bomb," _Marco said. _"In the door."_

Ace cursed. "Are you hurt?"

_"Shaken, but my jumpsuit took the worst of it. I'm just bruised." _

Ace let out a breath. "The marines probably were alerted the instant that thing went off. Get the power on, get back here, and then we're hauling ass out."

_"Right."_

Waiting with poorly stifled impatience and crossed arms, Ace tapped restless fingers against the crook of his arm until a distant hum sounded and the lights flickered a few times before settling on a soft yellow. Ace turned to face the monitor, which showed the IPEC logo while it booted up. He disabled the signal as soon as the ability to do so appeared, though the bomb detonation made that moot. A minute later, Marco appeared in the doorway. His suit was darkened with ash and debris, and there were some serious scratches on his helmet, but he was mobile.

_"Let me at the console," _Marco said. Ace obligingly moved, noting the ginger way Marco carried himself.

"Just bruised, huh?" Ace asked.

_"I can get out of here. That's what matters." _Marco's fingers flew over the keys, calling up windows and background tasks almost faster than Ace could process them. _"The drawer by you should have datadrives in it yoi. Grab one."_

Surprised by the ring of command in Marco's voice, Ace opened the drawer and pulled out one of the brightly-colored sticks.

_"Plug it in there." _Marco spared a hand to point to a slot next to the keypad. Ace did. The small light on the end of the datadrive lit up blue, and then a loading bar appeared on the screen. _"We don't have time to download everything," _Marco said. _"Just the last few days."_

"How long?" Ace asked. The instant his question finished, a warning light blared.

"Warning," a recorded voice intoned, "marine ship detected on approach. Estimated five minutes to orbital entry."

The loading bar finished. Marco grabbed the datadrive. _"Does that answer your question?"_

"Yeah," Ace said, fueled by new urgency. "We're leaving now. I'm calling the ship in from orbit—we're taking the main exit."

As Ace led the way in a reckless sprint through the cramped corridors, he tried not to think of the incoming orbital bombardment. The marines had left this facility intact to lure in anyone who had responded to the distress signal. It was a massive trap. If the control room bomb didn't kill the intruders, then they would send in a ship to finish the job. They wouldn't even have to land; a MAR fired from orbit would reduce the facility to so much molten slag.

"Hurry up!" Ace called, sensing that Marco was lagging. All he got was a grunt. Spinning on his heel, Ace saw Marco staggering. Cursing the reckless scientist for his impulsiveness and weak constitution, Ace ran back, picked Marco up in a sack carry, and started running again. When the scientist didn't even protest, the irritation Ace felt quickly changed to concern.

"Marco?" he asked while skidding around a corner. No response. _Shit_. "Bring up Marco's bio-readings," Ace ordered his suit. Since he and Marco had both synced their suits to the ship, they had access to the other's suit readings. Marco's came back bad. Very bad. Ace tuned out the pulsing red warning lights.

The hallway opened up into the main hangar. Ace found a path clear of crates and destroyed ships, ignored the sputtering fires, and ran like his life was on the line. In the reduced gravity, he had to carefully balance his forward momentum with his upward momentum, and the adjustments took time.

Sprinting out the main hangar doors and seeing the gray cliffsides of Harrow's Fjord looming up around him, Ace ran for the F22, which was landing twenty yards away. The landing gear came down, and then the ramp slowly began to lower.

"Faster, dammit!" Ace shouted. "Do you want us to die?"

The timer he'd created on his HUD had less than a minute. This was going to be close.

He jumped into the hold before the ramp was all the way down. With the seconds ticking away, Ace dumped Marco in the med bay, strapped him down, and all but flew into the cockpit. He slammed into the chair, readied the engines, and with the ramp still closing, took off without buckling in.

"C'mon," Ace muttered while the cliff walls rushed past. "C'mon, c'mon."

A warning flashed across one of the monitors. Ace ignored it. The ship rose faster and faster. Another warning light flashed; then a third, and then an alarm was blaring and the ship was clearing the cliffs and Ace was slamming forward the thrusters in an effort to outrun the MAR blast he knew was coming.

The F22 sloop streaked across the landscape. Ace built up speed and momentum, angling the ship towards the sky while still putting as much distance as he could between the ship and the facility.

His teeth suddenly ached. A second later, a massive shockwave slammed into the sloop, nearly throwing Ace from his chair. A wave of heat and fire rushed outwards from Harrow's Fjord, eating up the distance like it wasn't even there. The ground buckled and heaved under the force of the magnetically accelerated round slamming into the facility. A roar shook Ace's ears. The engines blared warnings about overheating, but Ace pushed them further anyway.

The fire swallowed Ace whole.

* * *

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	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 6**

_Marco_

Marco had never passed out from blood loss before. He had passed out from exhaustion, from hunger and thirst, but not blood loss. He decided, as he sat up with the world spinning and his stomach lurching, that he didn't want to do it again.

"Sir, I do not recommend movement for another two hours. Please remain on your back."

Marco looked to his left. The medical droid. He was in the sloop's medical bay. Undone straps dangled from the edge of the cot.

"What happened?"

"You sustained severe internal damage during your mission. Mr. Portgas put you in my care after leaving the planet Bystal. You have undergone surgery on your lower left abdomen. With the available supplies, I was able to completely heal the damage. Bedrest and minimal activity are recommended for the next two days while the gel in your intestines breaks down."

"Gel?" Marco muttered, looking down at himself. There was a scar on his lower left side, and he gingerly pressed against it. The insides underneath felt normal. Ish.

"I must ask you to please lie down," the medical droid repeated. "I have yet to complete the rest of my examination, as your internal injuries took priority."

"I'm fine yoi," Marco said to the droid.

_"You're not fine, you asshole." _Ace's voice came through a speaker in the corner.

"Ace?"

_"Yeah, it's me. Quit sounding surprised."_

"Where are you?"

_"Outside. Some of the debris from the explosion hit a secondary thruster, so I'm doing repairs."_

"You know how to repair a ship?"

_"You don't spend years as an IPEC-contracted mercenary without knowing at least that much. And I can follow a damned manual. Now do as the droid asks and lie down. I didn't carry you out of that place just to have you die. I still want to get paid."_

A final-sounding click let Marco know that Ace was no longer tuned into the medical bay. Had he been listening this whole time, waiting for Marco to wake up?

Marco recalled a section from his file: Ace's unwavering loyalty and composure under pressure. Apparently, that was no exaggeration.

While the droid finished its examination, Marco plied it with more questions. Ace had put in a report on the sloop's computer for future reference, a practice that was apparently standard for him whenever the UBMC got involved. It was a report that the medical droid could access and relay.

"MAR?" Marco repeated. "In orbit?"

"Affirmative," the droid said while it tested Marco's eyes. "This ship was far enough away from the site of the attack that its shields absorbed most of the damage."

The F22 sloop's shields were light. Any closer, and they would've been killed. Marco stared at the ceiling and tried not to think about how close he had come to death. Just over a week, and he'd nearly died.

It was…liberating, almost. Marco had never feared death, not properly. Even in the pod, with death just as real as the walls around him, the fear had found no purchase. It wasn't some careless idea of immortality, just…an inability to put death over whatever he was trying to accomplish.

Roughly two hours later, Marco was putting on a shirt when Ace strode into the medical bay still in his full jumpsuit. The pseudoglass doors slid open and shut almost silently, but Ace's boots were loud on the grated floor. And Ace was _mad_. He took off his helmet, slammed it down on a nearby counter, and glared.

"You," he growled, "will _never_ pull a stunt like that again, understood?"

Marco finished shrugging the shirt into place and raised an eyebrow. Ace made a frustrated gesture with his free hand, and then, to Marco's surprise, winced.

"I don't see how you can lecture me when you're also injured yoi," Marco said calmly. Surprisingly, that only seemed to make Ace more annoyed.

"This is an old injury," he said, flexing his elbow. Marco had noticed the extra padding on his left elbow but hadn't figured that it had any significance until now. "And none of your concern. You nearly died from internal bleeding. When you get injured, you _let me know_. It's not brave or smart to keep injuries hidden when both of our lives are on the line."

"There were more important things at the time."

"The _hell_ there were," Ace shot back. "You know what the contract says? Word-for-fucking-word: 'Protection of Marco is paramount.' _Paramount_. I couldn't care less about some recordings. You come first. You hired me to put you first. Let me do my goddamned job."

A bit mollified, Marco had to search for words. "I—" but that wasn't right. He sighed. "You're right, and I apologize. I won't do it again."

Ace simmered for another second before he turned, grabbed his helmet, and stormed out, a hot "you'd better not" tossed over his shoulder while he went to the jumpsuit cubbies.

Somehow both touched and vaguely irritated, Marco finished dressing himself in clothes that should have been covered in blood. He glanced at the droid. "Did you wash these?"

"Yes."

"And my body?"

"Yes."

Wonderful. Marco left the medical bay, his insides feeling a bit jumbled despite repeated assurances that his organs were all where they were supposed to be. He all but fell into one of the chairs by the holotable with a quiet groan. Thank the stars for painkillers.

Ace reappeared a minute later. Somehow, he'd gotten streaks of something dark on his face while removing his jumpsuit, and his hair was a mess.

"I'll be back down in ten," he said. "Then we can look at those recordings of yours."

He disappeared up the ladder. Marco stared at the holotable and finally noticed the datadrive sitting on top of it. It was just out of arm's reach, so Marco settled for staring.

Ace (or the medical droid) had taken his jumpsuit while he was unconscious, cleaned it, and hung it up. Marco rubbed his chest. Had Ace seen his tattoo? Marco's shirt had been covering almost all of it when Ace had walked into the medical bay. It was certainly a symbol that the mercenary would recognize—in fact, despite the fact that not all of Ace's information was on his file, Marco was nearly certain that Ace had served on Whitebeard's crew at some point. He just couldn't figure out why Ace hadn't been on the ship when it went down.

Ace came back down the ladder exactly ten minutes later, hair still wet from his shower. He had a loose orange sweatshirt on, the IPSC logo, an old-fashioned Jolly Roger, emblazoned on the left breast and back in bold black print. He had a knife sheathed over his black shorts.

"Are you ever not armed?" Marco asked, tracking Ace with his eyes while the mercenary sat across the table and then slid a sandwich and water bottle across the table.

"No. And eat. I'll get the drive hooked up."

Marco, not one to complain, took the sandwich and water bottle. Ace fiddled with the drive for a second, but soon enough had the files it contained pulled up on the table.

"Start at the beginning?" he asked. Marco swallowed and washed everything down with water.

"Seems like the best place."

"I'll let you do the honors."

Marco obligingly leaned forward, mindful of both his sandwich and his abdomen, and hit play. A voice crackled to life, listing the date, facility, and person recording. This was from three days ago. Marco listened for a few minutes, but this was just a standard end-of-day report. The man in the recording talked about how there was no trouble, and how he and the other researchers in the facility were thinking about pointing their satellites towards the Grand Line.

Ace caught Marco's eye. "Next day?"

"Next day."

Ace, who had kicked up his feet onto the table and was leaning way back into his chair, managed to hit the "next" button with his heel. The next recording was voiced by the same man. They had shifted the satellites and were excited about the prospects ahead. This time, though, the man noted that one scientist, someone named Max, had been heavily against changing the satellites. Feeling like he was watching a failed launch happen in slow motion, Marco gestured for Ace to hit the next day.

Expression grim, Ace did.

This time, the voice was a woman, and she spoke quickly.

_"This is Vanessa Lorraine." _Ace shifted. He'd been the one to move the bodies; Marco was willing to bet he remembered this woman's face._ "We've been infiltrated. Max was a traitor, he's called the marines here, they're already coming inside. We pointed our satellites at the Grand Line. We have to warn anyone heading that way: there are m—"_

A crash, a scream, shouting for a brief second, gunshots, and then static. The recording ended. Ace let out a low whistle.

Marco frowned. He set his sandwich next to his water and stared at the holotable. "A plant in an IPEC facility, especially an offworld one, is rare," he murmured.

"It happened," Ace said. "The question is, why was this plant so dead set on stopping these guys from looking at the Grand Line? That's exactly what you're planning to do."

Marco didn't have an answer. "I'm going to inform the IPEC of what happened. Where are we now?"

"Back in slipspace. Had to lose the marine pursuit."

"You were repairing an engine in _slipspace_?"

Ace shrugged. "I don't get freaked out the way other people do."

Marco stared. It was less about freaking out and more about the threat of instant death if the jumpsuit's connection to the ship was severed and the intrepid mechanic got their body scattered across an entire system. Never mind the prevalence of slip-sickness, intense nausea that afflicted a good third of humanity when travelling via slipspace. Ace stood and stretched without even noticing Marco's expression. "We're heading for Mainline. Should be there in a couple of weeks, at the current pace. You'll have plenty of time to recover."

"And what are you off to do?" Marco asked while Ace headed up the ladder.

"Now that you're awake? Sleep," Ace replied immediately. "I've had one hell of a day."

Marco couldn't argue. He finished his sandwich, the recordings replaying over and again in his mind. With a sigh, he got up and carefully made his way up to his room to submit his findings.

* * *

_**Please review.**_


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 7**

_Ace_

Ace was cleaning his weapons in the loading bay when he heard Marco descend the ladder. He didn't bother to hide a grin when Marco strode through the door a second later.

"What the hell is that?" Marco asked, jerking a thumb behind him. Ace, ever the accused innocent, set his gun aside.

"What is what?"

"Don't give me that yoi," Marco said. "I went to bed, and the common room was gray. I wake up, and now it's gray and orange and black. You're the only other person on this ship."

Ace pushed himself to his feet. "Maybe the ship's haunted."

"A ghost would have better things to do than paint."

"Maybe it's just really into interior design."

Marco's expression was getting less amused by the second. Ace sighed, sensing that levity wouldn't get him out of this. He took his rifle back to his cubby and put away his cleaning supplies in the cabinet beneath. Only then did he face Marco.

"Yes, I painted the common room. The gray was boring. Yes, this is your ship. But I'm living here too, and your monochromatic tyranny cannot stand."

"Monochromatic tyranny?"

"You're just mad I didn't paint it purple," Ace decided. "I can do that, by the way. I've got a _lot_ of paint left." Marco hesitated, Ace's eyebrows shot up. "Really?"

"It would be better than the orange."

"Compromise: the chairs stay orange."

"Fine. As long as it's the same muted orange."

"Pleased to do business with you," Ace said. He swept past Marco and went to get his paints, leaving the scientist to the loading bay—or, as Ace was now seeing it, his next project.

* * *

A couple of days later—and five days out from Mainline—Marco got a reply from IPEC headquarters. Ace was in the middle of his daily workout, and only got Marco's notification when his slate buzzed. Ace rolled out of his one-handed handstand, came up on his feet, and pulled out the tablet.

"'Bout time," he muttered. He pushed sweaty strands of hair out of his face and jogged to where Marco was waiting for him in the game room, slate on the central table while he stared at it from one of the chairs. Ace, skin still damp, opted to kneel on the floor on the other side of the table rather than smear sweat all over the furniture. "Why are you staring at that thing like it's poison?"

Marco sighed and put his elbows on his knees. "Something is going on."

Ace waited. When Marco didn't say anything, Ace lifted an eyebrow. "And? Anyone in the galaxy could've told you that."

Marco hummed. Finally, he sighed and met Ace's eyes. "IPEC headquarters said that two other facilities with instruments recently pointed at the Grand Line have gone dark. They're now doing a full sweep of personnel to try to find plants."

"Damage's already been done," Ace pointed out.

Marco, looking more tired than Ace had ever seen, reached out and grabbed his slate. "That may be, but we can at least prevent more attacks like this in the future yoi."

"What are the marines saying?"

"What do you think?"

"Pirate attack." Marco didn't even have to confirm. Ace sighed. Even though the marines branded the IPSC and the IPEC as pirates—the IPEC especially—the actual pirates they blamed for everything were these shadowy people who didn't really exist. The resources needed to survive in space were, at the moment, too expensive or too difficult to get for solo space living to be feasible. Some people tried, and Ace had stumbled across their crippled ships a couple of times in his career, their corpses still rotting in the limited atmosphere long after their ship had gone dark.

"Bastards," Ace muttered.

"Indeed."

Ace stared at the floor, brows knitted. Then he looked up at Marco. "If the UBMC is targeting anything pointed at the Grand Line, a ship heading anywhere near the place is going to meet heavy resistance. This expedition of yours just got a whole lot more dangerous." Ace pressed his lips together, hating that he had to admit it. "I don't know if just one mercenary will be enough to keep you alive."

Marco was quiet for a few seconds. "That's why I got the best mercenary in the entire solar system."

Ace closed his eyes. "You're willing to put your life on that?"

"You've already saved my life once. I trust you to do it again. This ship isn't going to be comfortable with more people, and I never meant this to be a military expedition. Now, I have no plans of turning back. Do you?"

The IPSC contract did leave room for Ace to call off the mission if he thought it was too dangerous. This qualified.

But.

Ace flashed back to the teeth-rattling takeoff, to the sight of Oceana shrinking behind them, to the trancelike calm he could only find in slipspace. He thought about Luffy, about their promise.

He couldn't give that up over some petty space police, could he?

"No," Ace said. "I don't."

Marco smiled. "Good." He chewed his lip for a second, then nodded decisively. "We'll be careful and stay out of UBMC space as much as possible. After we restock at Mainline, we'll be able to make it to the Grand Line with plenty of fuel to spare for the trip back to the port."

Ace clambered to his feet. "Planning on stopping at some planets, are we?"

"If not now, then when?"

He had a point. Ace stretched. "Fine with me. I'm going to finish working out and then shower. Do you need anything else?"

"No. I'm going to keep us out of slipspace for a couple more hours so I can verify a few points with the IPEC."

"Keep me posted."

Marco inclined his head. Ace headed back to the gym, turning over thoughts of the IPEC and the UBMC in his head. The UBMC hadn't always been particularly possessive of space travel, but after the first expeditions into the Grand Line, they'd suddenly tried to form a monopoly on it. There was something in the Grand Line, some kind of valuable treasure, Ace was sure, though he had no idea what that treasure could be.

He finished working out and then, as he'd told Marco he would, showered. The F22 had top-of-the-line water recycling systems, but Ace would still be glad to change it all out at Mainline. He stood under the steaming water, letting it stream from his hair down the rest of his body. His left elbow twinged, and Ace braced his left hand against the slick gray wall. He stared at his elbow, trying to see through the skin to the muscle and metal and bone beneath. It wasn't debilitating, and adrenaline always muted the pain during combat, but in quiet moments like these, it just reminded Ace that he wasn't invincible.

That he could fail.

Ace shook his head, rinsed out the last of the shampoo from his hair, and stepped out. The fans immediately got to work, blasting him from all sides. Ace snagged a towel from the wall in the middle of the impromptu buffeting, wrapped it around his waist, and left the bathroom before the fans officially finished. The door beeped unhappily when it opened, but Ace ignored it.

"Time," he said aloud.

_"It is four p.m. NBST on Oceana," _the ship AI responded. Ace picked up the pace and got into his room just in time to see his slate ringing. He closed the door behind himself and hurried over. The call was on its second-to-last ring when Ace hit accept.

_"Ace!"_

Luffy peered into the camera, his eye taking up most of the screen. Ace kept his slate on the bed so that the front-facing camera remained pointed at the ceiling while he got dressed.

"Luffy," Ace greeted. He put his back to his bed for a second while he pulled on a pair of boxers and his elbow brace, hair still dripping. "Sorry I almost missed the call. Been busy."

There was a slight delay before Luffy responded. _"Me too! We learned a bunch'a new stuff this week."_

Ace hunted for a pair of clean shorts. "Like what?"

_"Well, I didn't pay attention so well in the theory class, but the engineering demo was _amazing_. There are so many cool gadgets and tools here! I was welding these two plates together and the fire was green. Green!"_

Green fire? "You were welding Plate?" It caused a weird kind of chemical reaction under intense heat that made welding it both easy and incredibly efficient. Welding Plate was also dangerous; the fumes produced were highly unstable and, without a steady hand, welded parts could easily have uneven and weakened connections.

_"Yep! Whole class did. I got the best score."_

"'Course you did," Ace said fondly. He'd found shorts and a tank top, and so grabbed the slate and plopped into a chair so he could actually talk to Luffy face-to-face. "What about your friends? How are they?"

Luffy tilted his head and pursed his lips. His gaze drifted away from the camera. _"They're all doing great."_

"You're a horrible liar, Luffy. What happened?"

_"Well, Zoro kinda got into a fight and got his eye slashed up real bad, so the IPSC won't let him do anything until he's healed. Nami got caught stealing money, so she's gotta defend herself in court, and Usopp kinda fainted when he was put in the flight simulator. Oh, and Sanji got caught giving away cafeteria food again."_

Ace blinked. "You've all been busy."

_"Shishishi, yep! But don't worry. Zoro said he'll be fine and Nami is real good with words. Sanji never gets in real trouble, either."_

"And Usopp?"

_"He said he's gonna be a great pilot one day. He's just gotta get over his fear of…ah…"_

"Everything?" Ace supplied dryly. He'd met Luffy's friends in person only a couple of times, and Usopp had been an interesting character, to say the least. He wasn't sure how Luffy had drawn together such an eclectic crowd, but they seemed to be genuinely good friends, so Ace wasn't complaining.

_"Pretty much. But he'll get it. He promised he would."_

"Good luck to him, then. What about you? How did you do with the flight simulator?"

Luffy grinned wide. _"I crashed it!"_

Ace blinked, for a second unsure if the connection had distorted Luffy's words. "You crashed the simulator?"

_"Not _crashed_ crashed—computer stuff still worked. But my ship blew up. My instructor said I was the worst pilot he's ever seen, shishishishi."_

Ace stared. Sure, Luffy wasn't the most directionally oriented kind of guy, but… "Did you fly it directly into the planet or something?"

_"There was this super cool canyon, and I figured I could use this one cliff like a huge ramp, so I flew right into it."_

Ace pitied the instructor. "Luffy, spaceships aren't designed to be giant skateboards."

_"It was still super cool before the ship broke apart and something destabilized the power core."_

Something. Ace was willing to bet that the "something" had been a combination of friction, heat, and molten rock. And power cores were notoriously difficult to destabilize precisely because they tended to explode. Ace shook his head.

"You're something else, Luffy," he said.

_"It's okay though, because Nami is a really good pilot 'n Franky and I are great at working with her. She's great at flying!"_

Now that was a pleasant surprise. "Who's Franky?"

_"He's an instructor! He's helping me with the engineering stuff. He's been teaching here for a couple'a years. Did you ever have him? He's got blue hair."_

Marco's words were bouncing around in his head. _If not now, then when? _If there was ever a time to come clean to Luffy, this was it. Before this adventure turned into a disaster, before Ace's body was riddled with holes or scattered across space, and definitely before Luffy found out the hard way from all the people who could tell him that Ace had never been a pupil in the IPEC education curriculum. But Ace couldn't force the words out, couldn't articulate them around the fear and pride blocking his throat. So he lied, just like he always did.

"Can't say I had him," he said. "He sounds interesting, though. Are you having fun?"

_"So much! This whole thing is great. But I gotta go—got another class."_

"Good luck. Oh, and—" he hesitated. Luffy cocked his head, his camera blurring for a second when he stepped out of the way of another group of IPEC students passing by.

_"Ace? Is this thing lagging again?"_

Ace shook his head. "No, it's nothing. Never mind. But I don't know when I'll next be able to chat, so I'll call you next time, all right?"

_"All right. Bye, Ace!"_

"Bye."

The screen grayed out, the little red icon flashing once before his slate flipped to its usual home screen. Ace chewed his lip, then tossed the slate aside. He closed his eyes.

"Coward," he muttered.

* * *

_**Please review.**_


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 8**

_Marco_

Marco stared. He couldn't help it. "_That's_ your disguise?"

Ace glanced up. "What? Yeah, why not?"

Looking away and biting down on his lip to hold back another incredulous comment, Marco focused on adjusting his own disguise. "It just seems a bit…much."

"I built my whole image around maximum destruction and visibility. I've used this disguise every time I've gone to Mainline. It works."

Shaking his head, Marco buttoned the last button on his shirt and shrugged on his maintenance jacket. He glanced up just in time to see Ace fixing a scarf around his neck. The mercenary fiddled with the cloth for a minute before he nodded and moved on to styling his hair with a few pins and one strategically tied ribbon that Marco was pretty sure had a datadrive hidden within it.

Ace finished, rolled his shoulders, and saw Marco staring. He grinned. "Like what you see?"

Marco shrugged a little. "Honestly, I'm not sure what I'm looking at. Are you disguising yourself as a woman?"

Ace grinned. "Yep. Works every time."

Marco's right eyebrow crept higher. "And your voice?"

Still grinning, Ace fiddled with his scarf one last time. Marco had to admit, with the scarf, long burgundy overcoat, flowing shirt and loose pants, makeup, and fashionable hat, Ace could pass off as an unusually tall female mercenary. The facial prosthesis certainly helped in that regard.

"Call me Ash," Ace said, only his voice had gone up an octave. Marco didn't even want to know where he'd gotten the voice modulator, or when. He just had to remind himself that, quirks aside, Ace was one of the best mercenaries in the business, Marco's own misgivings notwithstanding.

"Ash?" Marco repeated. "It's a miracle you haven't been caught. Could you not have gone as another mechanic?"

Ace crossed his arms and gave Marco an appraising look. "I could have," he admitted.

"Why didn't you?"

"I dunno. There were easier options, but it's kinda fun to have this alter ego. Ash is slowly making her way up in the world. It's not like I'm taking advantage of anyone." Ace seemed disgusted by the very idea. "Fuck that. Besides, it's a disguise no one will ever see coming. You know how stupid the UBMC is about women."

Marco did know. They had a history of letting off female IPEC and IPSC employees with lighter sentences than male employees. What the UBMC didn't know was that the IPEC's workforce was now more than half female as a result and the IPSC was approaching that same ratio.

"Fair enough."

"Besides," Ace continued, "I'm going to a much more dangerous part of Mainline. All you have to do is meet up with your buddies and secure supplies. _I'm _hunting for information. A mechanic is an easy target, but another mercenary? Not as much."

"I wasn't aware information was such a dangerous beast. Maybe you should bring a lasso."

"Ha-ha." Ace unsheathed the knife on his thigh and twirled it. "Here's my lasso. I'll meet back up with you at 1600. If I'm not there, get to this ship and wait for another five minutes. If I still don't show up, get well away from here."

"Of course."

Marco followed Ace out of the F22, and his attention immediately went to the small crowd that had accumulated on the platform. The dockman in charge of this particularly dodgy port in the underbelly of Mainline approached, and Marco let Ace—now Ash—take the lead.

"Bardo," Ace greeted with a charming smile. "I see you're still runnin' this place. How much does my friendship discount save me this time?"

The man named Bardo approached with an unsavory gleam in his eye. Marco could only describe him as greasy: his hair, what remained of it, hung in stringy clumps around his face and his overalls were absolutely splattered with liquids Marco couldn't identify. Still, he appeared to be in charge here, so Marco kept his observations and opinions to himself.

"Depends on who yer friend here is," Bardo said. Ace glanced back at Marco, one eyebrow raised.

"Go on then," Ace said. "Introduce yourself."

"Charlie," Marco lied. He didn't extend his hand; something foul-smelling coated Bardo's skin. "IPEC mechanic."

Ace faced Bardo fully again. "He was kind enough to come with me all the way out here, but IPEC isn't supposed to know he's gone. You know how it is."

Marco suppressed a shudder at Bardo's expression. "Mhm, I do," Bardo said, his eyes lingering on the F22. "Fine, then. Your usual fee."

Ace smiled wide and removed the datadrive from his hair. "One-time passcode to make your withdrawal, as always."

Bardo accepted the drive. As close as their hands got, Marco was pretty sure that Ace never actually made contact. Even he had standards.

"Pleasure doing business," Ace said.

He and Marco left Bardo on the platform. Ace stepped into a rusting elevator with no hesitation and gestured Marco inside. "C'mon, we don't have all day."

Marco frowned. "Could we not have used a less suspicious platform?"

Ace shook his head. "No. The UBMC keeps an eye on all official traffic coming in and out of Mainline. We already know that IPEC's compromised. We have to operate under the assumption that the UBMC knows about us and our mission. Any F22 that docks at Mainline, whether it's listed as ours or not, would get a 'random' inspection." Ace's air quotes indicated just how random such checks would be.

"Still."

Ace shrugged. "Bardo's trustworthy. Been using his platforms for years. Plus, he's got connections most of the rest of the underbelly guys can only dream of. Best part? He isn't a King, so I don't have to worry about their particular brand of debt." The elevator jerked to a stop and the doors rumbled open. Ace stuck his hands in his coat pockets. "This is my stop. Ride the elevator to the top, do what you need to do, and head back down when you're ready. Tell anyone to send their shipments to platform 444. They'll know what it means. If they look confused, buy the supplies from somewhere else." With that, Ace smoothly stepped out of the elevator. Marco watched him until the doors rattled shut and the elevator jerked into motion again.

Taking a deep breath, Marco tried not to think about how below-board he and Ace were being right now. Just because the UBMC was omnipresent didn't mean they had to go to these ridiculous lengths, but here he was, dressed in an oil-stained mechanic's uniform with a fake moustache on his face and his hair hidden under an equally stained cap.

He felt ridiculous.

The elevator stopped, the doors opened, and Marco stepped out into a narrow alley between two dilapidated buildings. He tugged his cap a little lower and headed for the main street, where foot traffic was almost as bad as the crowds at IPEC headquarters. Marco, long used to dense throngs of people, slid and maneuvered his way to the other side with only three insults being thrown his way. He ignored them and followed the signs attached to the buildings looming up on either side of the street. Trains on tracks mounted some forty feet overhead occasionally rumbled by, making the ground shake. The noise was unbearable, the press of bodies stifling, the smell ungodly. Marco breathed through his mouth for the ten-minute walk to the main resupply station.

When the street widened out into a plaza and Marco split off. He took a minute to collect himself under one of the few trees dotting the square. He glanced up again. None of the trains went directly over this part of Mainline, giving Marco a clear few of the Dome, the single most impressive feat of engineering known to man. A massive metal behemoth, the Dome kept the vacuum of space from consuming the tens of thousands of people who lived, worked, and passed through Mainline. The sky simulation showed early morning with scattered clouds as the fake sun slowly rose up over the arbitrarily-decided East Mainline.

No one even glanced Marco's way. The numerous exits of the plaza all led to different Platforms—the different "zones" of Mainline, all dedicated to different collections of businesses. Marco wanted Platform Ten, where all spaceship resupply stops sat squished together. Their actual supplies were on a much lower level—probably sublevel thirty or below—which let Mainline cram in as many competitors as possible into the smallest possible space. In Mainline, real estate was at a premium; any space that could be saved, would be saved. No exceptions. The richest residents paid hundreds of thousands of beri for a couple extra square feet.

Marco took a deep breath, stood straight, and plunged back into traffic. A few pickpockets made amateurish swipes at his pockets, but Marco knew how to keep his attention on himself and not the crowd, so he batted away wandering hands with practiced ease until the herd thinned out enough to breathe. He glanced around, noting all the different shops scattered around Platform Ten. He ran through his mental checklist: food, water, medical supplies, a few odds and ends…not too bad, considering. The ship ran on a modified mk. III power core, so it wouldn't technically _need_ a recharge until they were making their way back. Even then, it could probably get them to Oceana, but the recharge was just to be safe. All in all, well within their budget. As long as Ace didn't pull any stunts, Marco was pretty sure they'd be in and out of Mainline without attracting any unwanted attention.

He went from stall to stall. This wasn't unlike the maintenance shops at the IPEC HQ; many repairs and orders were done through contractors, so Marco was used to haggling. He could see the dismay in a few of the sellers' eyes when they realized he wasn't an easy mark. What was more interesting, however, was the expression of quiet understanding whenever Marco specified the platform. He didn't run across any sellers who didn't know what platform 444 really meant. There were no looks of confusion, no questions, not even a second glance.

"I guess 'well connected' was an understatement," Marco muttered after he turned away from the last seller. He was done with his errands far earlier than expected. He didn't particularly relish the idea of sequestering himself in the ship for an hour longer than necessary, so he left Platform Ten behind and headed for the park.

While the air in Mainline wasn't really fresh, is was leagues better than the recycled oxygen Marco had been breathing for the past few weeks. The F22 had better recycling systems than most ships, but it just wasn't the same as fresh air. It was too stale. Mainline at least had fans and other systems designed to keep the air from growing stagnant. They could fit far more air-scrubbing technology in the Dome than even the most advanced luxury craft could dream of.

Marco was so distracted by his thoughts that he almost didn't notice when the ground started shaking. He spun on his heel and looked back towards where he'd come from. Not even that far—smoke was rising up from a nearby sewer grate. All the nearby sewer grates, actually. Marco reached for his slate. It was already ringing.

"Ace," Marco said, striding back towards the elevator. "Care to explain?"

_"First of all," _Ace said, though his words were hard to make out with the screams in the background, _"I resent that you're already accusing me."_

"Are you saying you're not the source of the smoke?"

_"There was a bit of a complication."_

"Does it involve your missing voice modulator?"

Ace cursed. _"Forgot it at the bar. Listen, get back to the ship. I'll meet you there. We're leaving immediately."_

"What did you _do_?"

"_Pissed off a king. Just get to the ship. I'll—"_

His line cut off. Marco spared a second to stare at his slate in disbelief before he shook his head and took off at a run. Everyone was streaming away from the more crowded areas. Marco felt like a fish fighting his way upstream.

Another explosion rocked Mainline. Alarms blared, strobe lights in the ceiling flashing red as the digital sky fizzled out.

What the hell had Ace gotten himself into?

Marco skidded into the elevator and punched the down button. The door rattled shut and the lift jerked into motion. Marco stared at the rust- and stain-spotted walls. Pissing off a king? Was Ace trying to get them killed? Marco sighed. Maybe he was joking. Or maybe he'd just gotten mixed up in—

Something slammed onto the roof of the elevator. Marco stumbled, right hand reaching for his pistol. His fingers grasped empty air. The pistol was on the ship.

Marco backed towards one side. He was no hand-to-hand expert, but he wasn't going down without a fight. Footsteps sounded until they stopped directly over the overhead door. Someone hauled it open. The ancient hinges shrieked, making Marco wince and miss the body being dropped into the elevator until it smacked his shins. Ace dropped down a second later, his clothes burned and his face spattered with soot and grease.

"Yo," he greeted.

It took Marco a second to speak. "What—who—who is this? What did you do?"

"That," Ace said, nodding at the body, "is Trafalgar Law, infamous IPEC pirate and former underling of one Donquixote Doflamingo."

Marco wanted this to be a dream. He really, really did. "Doflamingo. The king."

"Yep."

The elevator shuddered to a stop and the doors jerked open. Ace reached down and yanked the unconscious Law up, throwing him into a sack carry.

"Do I even want to ask how this happened?" Marco asked as they ran for the ship. Automated robots were still loading cargo, but Marco estimated that eighty percent of what he'd ordered was already on board.

"A bar, a bar fight, and me getting involved in something I shouldn't have entirely on accident," Ace said. "We can talk over the details later."

While Ace got Law situated, Marco hauled in as many crates as he could that the robots weren't going to get to. Some of them were food, a couple were full of spare parts, and one was just laundry supplies. Marco was going to put the scent spray right outside Ace's room once they got away from this insanity.

"Marco!" Ace called from inside the ship. "We gotta go!"

Marco glanced up. Streaks of light had appeared in the Mainline airspace and Marco had no doubt where they were headed. He set down the last box, slammed his hand on the ramp seal switch, and joined Ace in the cockpit. On the way, he passed Law, who was strapped into one of the holotable chairs, still unconscious.

"Bay's closing," Marco said, sliding into the copilot's chair. Ace grunted acknowledgement as he flipped a couple switches and yanked the nav screen closer. He tsked and shoved the screen towards Marco. Its support slid on its tracks, stopping within Marco's reach.

"They're gonna catch us before we get far enough to jump," Ace explained while he fired up the F22's engines. "You know how to work the guns?"

Marco had run a couple of simulations after purchasing the ship and said as much.

"Great," Ace said. The ship lifted off the landing pad. "Hope that's enough to keep us from getting blown to pieces."

"Wouldn't you be more suited to the guns yoi?" Marco asked, voice dry but hands slick with sweat. How was Ace this calm?

"I'm used to this," Ace said as though reading Marco's thoughts, "and I trust myself to pilot through enemy fire, dunno about you. At the very least, I can give us a shot." He tensed. "Four ships, looks like two F-series and two towing vessels. Take out the towing ships first—don't want us getting caught in a tractor beam. We'll be sitting ducks"

"Right," Marco said. His hands shook as he took hold of the gun controls. He set the nose cannon to AI targeting—notoriously glitchy but better than nothing—and took control of the two laser cannons under the wings. The screen in front of him switched to a render of the surrounding space, with the approaching ships highlighted in red.

"Here we go," Ace grunted, easing the ship off the dock. "Don't you dare freeze up on me."

Marco choked on his answer when Ace gunned the engines, pinning Marco back into his seat. Through the force pulling on every muscle, Marco grabbed the controls again and lined up the scopes as Ace blasted towards the ships that were intending to scrap them.

The tractor ships were easily three times the size of their F22, built for towing much larger ships that had gone dead in space. Marco hesitated. There were people on those ships—

Lasers slammed into the F22's shield right in front of the cockpit's windows, sending out a wave of blue plasma across the front of the ship.

"MARCO!" Ace hollered, sending them into a nauseating nosedive while spinning to avoid a hail of laser fire. "SHOOT! THEM! BACK!"

He yanked them out of the dive and streaked back towards the other ships. The red targeting markers flashed. The F22 had lock on the biggest ships.

Marco hit the button and the missiles shot out from under the wings in brilliant bursts of red light. The smaller ships dodged, and one of the bigger ships tried to release a trail of flak, but it was useless. Both tractor ships exploded in brilliant plumes of red and orange that flared and died in the same breath.

Ace cheered. "Now get the rest of 'em!"

Marco drew a deep breath. He ignored the floating wreckage as Ace closed in on the two dogfighting vessels. The autocannon whirred to life and laid down a hail of gunfire on the nearest ship. Marco turned his attention to the farther one, sending out bursts from each wing cannon to keep it occupied.

The nearest enemy ship got clipped by a shot from the cannon that shattered its shields. Ace closed in, weaving through space to avoid the panicked covering fire from the last ship.

"In your dreams," Ace snarled, sweeping behind the crippled ship and hovering on its far side, using it as a shield from its ally.

It was almost pitiful. Marco didn't need to take the shot; the F22's AI targeted and destroyed the ship before Marco could even press the button to fire. The ravaged debris floated past them, holes punched through the plate and ragged edges still glowing from the heat of the explosion.

Through the heat and haze, the computer highlighted the last remaining ship on Marco's screen. It was just out of range of the autocannon. Marco, shoulders aching from tension, pressed the button. A single missile flew off into space, its red trail marking its progress until it bloomed into a fourth and final fireball.

"That's that problem," Ace said, banking them until the F22's nose pointed to open space.

"I didn't think it would be that simple yoi," Marco said. "Doflamingo is not easily deterred."

"I know." Ace pulled up the view of behind them on the right section of the cockpit window. He whistled at the destruction dotting the near side of Mainline. Stray gunfire had ravaged the place. "Okay," he said, "we might not be making another stop here anytime soon."

"Ace," Marco said, spotting the hordes of ships rising up from other landing pads like a swarm of angry wasps.

"I see them. Hang onto your stomach—no time to be delicate."

The viewing window closed and Marco's hair stood on end. Space outside their ship blurred and warped. No preparation, no warning—Marco tried not to let the pure vertigo of slipspace entry get to him, but there was no stopping it. His limbs went numb and a migraine exploded in his skull. As a myriad of colors swarmed the cockpit, Marco's eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed back into his chair.

* * *

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	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 9**

_Ace_

Ace leaned back into his chair and let out a breath. He held up his hands. They still shook with residual adrenaline. He grinned, squeezing his hands into fists, before he hauled himself to his feet.

"Not bad, Ma—Marco?" The scientist was passed out in his chair, face utterly drained of color. Ace glanced back out the cockpit.

Slipspace entry put incredible stress on people. Ace was a bit of a freak of nature in that respect, but Marco apparently wasn't—especially since they hadn't had the time to recalibrate the F22's shields to mitigate the worst of the effects. And people were usually supposed to be in their suits, too. Better passed out than dead, though.

Ace spared a second to check that no one had followed. Jumping into someone else's slipspace tear was nigh-impossible, but there were records of it happening. But no, the sensors weren't picking up anything. They'd gotten away.

Seeing that their passenger was still unconscious, Ace spent a couple minutes shedding what remained of his Ash disguise and bandaging his arm. That stupid bar fight had damaged his facial prosthesis and coat, and to top things off he'd lost his voice-modulating scarf in the confusion. Just his luck. It was a bit of a relief to change back into his usual attire, and far more so to have the comforting weight of his knife properly on his hip again.

He went back down the ladder to see Law undoing the straps holding him up.

"Well, you're awake."

Law blinked at him. His eyes narrowed. "What happened to the other mercenary?"

"She had to step out." Ace bent down and gave Law a once-over. "Looks like you weren't injured much beyond that first fight. How's your head?"

Law's distrust was plain. Ace sighed. "Look, I got your ass out of Mainline. I don't have any plans of holding you for ransom or cashing in your bounty. I've got a little more pride than that. So, how's your head?"

Closing his eyes, Law leaned back into his chair. "Bad," he said. "I suspect I'm heavily concussed."

"You did take a chair to the head." Ace stood. "And that was after you started feeling the effects of that stupid drug. You'll probably be fine. You got a way to contact your crew?"

Law nodded, lips pressed together to hide a wince. "Just get me a radio."

Ace sat at the end of the holotable and started messing with it. Law cracked an eye open to watch, but Ace paid him no mind.

"Should be here," Ace muttered, scanning the communications menu. "What's the channel?"

Groaning, Law leaned forward and swiped through the options. Ace kept a close eye on his face, mostly because he didn't want the guy puking all over their very nice holotable.

"This is it," Law said, selecting the one closest to his face. Not all that confident in Law's ability to read, Ace sat back in his chair and waited while the ship attempted to establish a link.

Then he realized.

"We're in slipspace," he said, standing. "Hold on. I'll pull us out, then you radio for your ride."

Law grunted acknowledgement. Marco was still passed out in the cockpit, but some color had returned to his face. Ace nudged him while he passed. Marco groaned and stirred, eyes squinting open. "Ace?"

"Rise and shine. I'm taking us out of slipspace. Close your eyes."

At least this time the shield was calibrated. Ace's stomach lurched a bit and he had to brace himself against the metal struts between the windowpanes, but it was over pretty quickly. He stared out into the black, trying to pick out a navigational marker with the naked eye. There, in the distance, really just a gray dot: Durs. The first planet out from Mainline.

"Please tell me we're not doing another jump like that again yoi," Marco muttered, opening his eyes again.

"No promises." Ace stood straight. "Law's contacting his crew to get picked up. You can stay here or come with me; your choice."

Marco closed his eyes. "I think I need another minute. Next time, give me a little more warning."

"Would our ship blowing up be enough warning?"

Marco frowned but didn't respond. Ace trooped back into the common area and fell back into his seat. Law raised an eyebrow.

"Go ahead," Ace said, gesturing.

"You have a crewmate."

"He's feeling sick right now. Don't worry about it."

"Uh…sure." Law hit the _transmit_ switch. Ace tried to relax while Law radioed for help, but the excitement from that escape was still making him twitchy. He sighed. He just _had_ to get involved, didn't he?

Not to mention that his right arm was still hurting like hell. Stupid guy bringing a knife to a fistfight. Who the hell tried to stab an innocent woman? Ace was just lucky that the body armor sewn into his jacket had stopped the worst of it. Hadn't stopped the blade from drawing blood, though.

Ace watched Law finish his conversation with his crew. Hearing that Law was the captain of his crew wasn't all that surprising. The guy had that air about him.

"They will be here in fifteen minutes," Law said. "Roughly."

Ace grunted acknowledgement and pillowed his head on his arms. He wanted a nap. And a shower.

"You look tired yoi."

"Shut up, Marco," Ace mumbled.

"You must be our temporary passenger. Law, right?"

"Who are you?"

"Ace's crewmate."

Ace stiffened and raised his head in time to see Law looking at him askance. Knowing that the jig was up, Ace offered a small wave. "Yo."

"I suspected it was you," Law said slowly, "but it seemed too unlikely. Why are you employed on a mission like this?"

Shrugging, Ace feigned a nonchalance he didn't feel. "Ah, y'know, I saw an opportunity I couldn't pass up."

Law recognized the non-answer for what it was and let the subject drop. Marco and Law chatted away the next quarter hour while Ace ran a few tests on the ship to make sure nothing had been knocked askew during their fight. He was messing with the cockpit seat settings when the sensors picked up the approaching ship, flashing a hail signal that matched Law's description. Ace gave the appropriate counter-signal and then ducked back into the meeting area.

"Your ride's here," he told Law.

The actual process of getting Law back onto his own ship was pretty simple: his (much larger) ship pulled up next to the F22 and connected to the airlock. Law just walked back over. When he was gone and the airlocks disconnected, Ace and Marco went back to the cockpit.

"Why did you save him yoi?" Marco asked, watching the Heart ship disappear into slipspace. "You don't strike me as the pitying type."

"I'm not," Ace said. "But I owed him one. Plus," he grinned, "he looks like he's gonna be hell on the marines, and I'm all for supporting the youth."

* * *

_**Please review.**_


	11. Chapter 11

_Fun fact: this story was originally written for a Big Bang a year or two ago, but I only got through the first four chapters before my muse died and I had to back out._

* * *

**Chapter 10**

_Marco_

_"Planetary approach, stealth orbital entry, covert maneuvering into underground tunnels, and getting lost…all for some _rocks_."_

Marco elected to ignore Ace's mutterings. The mercenary clearly wanted to get a rise out of him, which just wasn't going to happen. Marco was an IPEC engineer. Tedious meetings and incessant complaints had long since toughened his skin against easy provocation. Still, he would've preferred silence.

The blue glow of his handheld excavation laser pulsed as it slowly burned through the cave's rock wall. Marco's visor had automatically tinted to compensate for the light, but it was still bright. After another thirty seconds of painstaking focus, Marco flicked off the little pen and slipped it back into his belt. He switched to a simple hammer and chisel and got to work weakening the last of the rock holding this sample in place. With a satisfying _clink_, the last connection gave way and the sample tumbled down. Marco caught it in his left hand and held it up, a satisfied smile sliding across his face.

Ace was leaning up against a natural pillar a few yards away, rifle loosely held in his hands and pointed at the floor. _"Finally done?"_

"With this sample, yes," Marco said. He put the sample in a bag and placed the bag in his specially-designed backpack. The backpack went back onto his shoulders as he stood, muscles protesting against Durs' doubled gravity. "We can move onto the next room now."

_"Great."_

Ace pushed off the pillar, lifted his gun, and led the way deeper into the cave. Marco's backpack pressed hard into his shoulders, the weight of all his samples making his feet sink deeper into the soft dust on the floor.

Maybe that was why he noticed first. Either way, it was too late.

"Ace—" Marco started, panic surging when the floor became far too soft to be safe. Ace was already turning, but his foot fell on a loose patch, and he lost his balance. The both of them got trapped in the shifting sand until it dragged them under. Marco's vision went dark as all light was swallowed. He was definitely falling.

_"Marco, you there?"_

Of course. The radio. "Yes. Where are you?"

_"Can't tell. It's dark. You never mentioned sand pits on Durs."_

"They're exceedingly rare, and almost never found underground."

_"Figures we'd find the one sample, then."_

"Yes, I—"

Marco's right leg was suddenly free, and he lost his train of thought in surprise as the rest of his body fell out of the sand pit into a narrow tunnel. His visor flickered a grainy green while it tried to pull out light from the faint glowing minerals in the walls, but Marco was more focused on the terror gripping his chest.

He slid down too fast to stop, hands scrabbling for purchase but finding none. His suit absorbed the worst of the impacts as he ran into walls and slid over miniature ramps, but Marco could still feel his teeth rattling. Finally, after a harrowing minute, the sand slide dumped Marco onto a massive dune. He groaned, for a moment too tired to move. There were far more light crystals down here; at least he could see now.

Then he heard Ace yelling.

_"YeeeeeeeAAAAAAAAAH!"_

Marco looked up just in time to see Ace come flying out of a different chute. The mercenary activated his jetpack the moment he was relatively upright. He still hit the pile of sand hard, but he did it with far more grace than Marco had managed. Ace tried to stand too early, though, and he lost his balance again. Marco watched him roll all the way down the sand pile and hit the floor with an inelegant _thunk_.

"Having fun?" Marco asked.

_"More than I was." _Ace got up. _"Where are—ah, I see you. Get down here. There are more tunnels. One of 'em will lead back to the top."_

He made it sound so easy. Marco picked his way down the pile, trying to stick to areas with rocks poking up through the purple sand. He made it, somehow, and stopped next to Ace. "What happened to your gun?"

Ace perked up. _"Oh, right." _He glanced up, and Marco got the impression that he'd narrowed his eyes. _"I lost it when the sand sucked us in. It's a lot lighter than we are, but it's probably…"_

One last shape shot out of the chutes. One jetpack-assisted jump later, Ace was back by Marco, his rifle in hand. Sighing, Marco examined the passages available.

_"So, which one?" _Ace asked.

Marco pointed to the one farthest to the right. "There."

_"You're confident." _Despite his tone, Ace was already walking in that direction, alert for any signs of trouble.

"All the rest of the passages have veins of cryptstone," Marco explained wearily. "It's a rock formation unique to Durs that only occurs when the rock isn't exposed to sunlight. This tunnel must lead to the surface."

_"Okay, that checks out."_

Marco scowled, but Ace wasn't in a position to see that. As he followed the mercenary, however, the ground vibrated. Ace must've felt it too, because he stopped.

_"Durs isn't known for earthquakes," _Ace said slowly as he turned to face the way they'd come, weapon raised. Marco was suddenly and acutely aware that he'd left his pistol on the ship. He was never doing that again.

"No," Marco agreed, "it isn't."

"_What's the local fauna like around here?"_

Marco settled for his excavation laser, which, while meant for rock, would still do damage to anyone—or anything—unlucky enough to be close enough to the other end. "When disturbed? Hostile."

_"Start running."_

"What?"

Ace jerked his head up the passageway. _"Go. That way. Now. I have a gun. You have a laser pen."_

Marco had to admit defeat on that front. He turned and ran, using sporadic bursts from his jetpack to get more distance when his legs couldn't handle Durs's doubled gravity. The rumbling was growing in intensity, now shaking loose rocks from the walls. They skittered back down the path.

_"Move faster, techhead!" _Ace called. _"We're gonna get caught!"_

"What's chasing us?" Marco gasped. He had an idea, but—

_"Dunno, but it's lighting up my motion sensor like a goddamned firework. Move!"_

He could see daylight seeping around the next bend. Even as he processed that, he heard Ace curse, and then laser fire lit up the whole cave a startling blue. Marco tripped, turned as he fell, and landed hard on his back. Pushing himself up, he saw something straight out of a nightmare. The cave walls seethed with life, roiling as thousands of spiderlike creatures thundered out of the depths to attack the trespassers. For each group that Ace mowed down, tens more scuttled up to take its place. Ace cursed, backpedaling, and nearly tripped over the dumbstruck Marco.

_"What are you doing? Do you want to get torn apart? Get up!"_

They weren't going to make it. Marco knew that much without having to double-check the distance to the surface. There were too many creatures, too much ground to cover.

And then he realized: each time Ace hit his mark, the creature burst into flames. The spider-things nearby shrank back, chittering.

Marco staggered to his feet and unhooked a tube from his belt. With surprisingly steady hands, he twisted the top, which then rose up an inch, revealing a strip of glowing red light. The light pulsed once, twice—

"Ace," Marco called, "close your eyes!"

_"Close my—"_

Marco hurled the flare and turned away. It burst into brilliant life, flooding the cave with lurid red light. A deafening litany of shrieks echoed off the rock walls as the monsters shrank back, their retinas probably scorched. Marco's visor finally polarized to compensate for the light and he glanced back, seeing Ace with one arm thrown up. That arm came down.

_"Holy shit, Marco."_

"I think we should move now."

_"Yeah, good idea." _Ace turned and started running as fast as gravity allowed, Marco just ahead of him. The creatures didn't follow, held at bay by the burning flare.

* * *

"So," Ace said, dropping down onto the common room couch, "the flare."

Back in the comforting embrace of slipspace, the F22 was making slow progress to Ripoklia, the next planet in line. After that was Bystal, and then they'd be at the Grand Line. With slipspace, the journey out was relatively short, only weeks instead of years. The rest of their mission time would be spent drifting through the Grand Line, collecting samples, taking pictures, and mapping out possible routes.

But first, this.

"I saw that the light from the burning dophages scared the rest away," Marco said. That was another thing—they'd looked up the creatures. Dophages, they were called, and they were known for being absurdly aggressive. It was why settlements on Durs were so fortified, the caves beneath them so thoroughly scouted out. No one wanted to be caught unawares by a horde of the things.

Ace threw his arms over the back of the couch. Freshly showered from their spelunking expedition, his hair dripped down his face, but he didn't seem to notice or care. "Well, it was a good idea. No way I could've held them all off. You've got a good brain knocking around in there."

"After that helljump, I doubt anything could terrify me," Marco said dryly. Ace laughed.

"It wasn't that bad."

"There was a reason I hadn't done one before."

Ace raised an eyebrow. "I don't picture you getting into a situation where it's necessary, honestly."

"You never did look up my history, did you?"

"Nah."

"Seems reckless."

"I trust my gut."

Marco sighed and spared a second to take a sip of his tea. "I'm sure you've been wrong before."

Ace's expression darkened. "Once." There was a story there. Marco raised an eyebrow, inviting elaboration, but Ace didn't immediately say anything. After a few tense seconds, he relented. "I'm sure you've heard the story on your little IPEC grapevine. One of Whitebeard's crew betrayed him. None of us saw it coming. He killed one of my best friends—stabbed him in the back—and tried to get away with some stupid haul we'd gotten from one of Durs's moons." Ace shook his head. "Shot him down before he could make slipspace, but the people he killed weren't coming back."

Marco had heard something about that, but he'd dismissed it as ridiculous. A traitor in Whitebeard's crew? The idea was ludicrous.

"That was a long time ago, now, though," Ace said. "I got hurt pretty bad because of him." He gestured to his elbow. "Had no choice but to stay on Oceana until it healed. And, well." His lips twisted into a bitter smile. "Never saw them again."

For all that his tone was flippant, real pain burred his voice. Marco looked at Ace, really looked at him, and finally saw the unsteady line cut through his shoulders.

"I'm sure they missed you."

Ace's eyes slid to meet Marco's, guarded and suspicious and, underneath all of that, guilty. "Sure. Especially when their ship blew up."

Marco examined his teacup while he formulated a good response. He was older than Ace by almost twenty years, and after seeing Ace's trauma for himself, he felt oddly responsible for the young man.

"I think that love, respect—they're sometimes expressed in the things you don't say," Marco began slowly. "I…I knew a man, years ago, who inspired in me the greatest respect of anyone in my life. He could have pointed me to the airlock and told me to die, and I would've done it in a heartbeat, because he would've asked me to do it for a reason. Trust, respect, even a kind of love—he had it all, but he was just a man, and he did not forget that.

"I never told him, of course, that I respected him yoi. Hardly exchanged a word with him, in fact. But I think he understood it, somehow, in my actions." Marco gripped his mug a little tighter, lost in his own thoughts. "I can only hope he did."

"Who was he?" Ace asked, voice quiet but eyes sharp. Reminded of where he was, Marco straightened in his seat and rolled back the maudlin streak that had run through him.

"Just a man," he said, unwilling to share their overlapping history just yet. There was far too much time left in their journey for the heart-to-heart to happen now. "There aren't a lot of men like that out here yoi. More heroes than people." He sighed. "What I'm trying to say is, I suppose, just knowing someone like that, being able to work with them—it's a gift. I was honored to work with him, and even if he isn't alive anymore, I'm grateful I got the opportunity." He got to his feet. "I'm going to make food. Any preference?"

Ace's expression was unreadable. After a beat, he shifted gears. "Something with pasta. I'm sick of sandwiches."

Marco could do that.

* * *

Ripoklia was the largest known gas giant. Almost always stuck in the throes of a planet-wide storm system, however, it was completely inhospitable. Worse, the storms were hitting their cycle's peak, and would remain that way for weeks. At this level of fury, the atmospheric winds would tear their sloop apart. Adjusting his plans, Marco took them to one of its moons, Ava, instead. They landed without incident, and Marco set up camp.

Behind him, Ace stomped his boots on the ice. It didn't so much as crack.

"Careful," Marco warned. "If you do manage to break through, you'll open up a geyser ten miles high."

Ace immediately stopped stomping, but he didn't stop moving. While Marco carefully controlled the drill moving through the ice to get some samples from roughly ten million years ago, Ace kept a constant lookout. Ava was largely unexplored, and while the IPEC suspected that there was life under the miles-thick crust of ice, they simply didn't have a way to cost-effectively break through just yet. No one had been out here on an expedition in some ten or so years.

Marco was taking this opportunity to narrow a fifty-million-year gap in the IPEC's knowledge of Ava's history. The moon was, for lack of a better term, dented, and no one had any idea how that had come to pass.

_"Hey," _Ace said after a few minutes. _"Did IPEC ever get back to you about all the bases that got hit and that whole investigation?"_

"Not lately." Marco navigated around a chunk of what appeared to be stone stuck in the ice. A bit of meteorite? He shaved off a tiny piece for analysis. "Last I heard, they had flushed out almost thirty undercover agents and temporarily shut down half their monitoring facilities. Why?"

_"Just wondering." _Ace wandered over and crouched next to the hole Marco had dug. The drill—a tiny machine—had used it as a starting point to begin its mission. _"Can I drive?"_

"No."

_"Why not?"_

Marco shot Ace a droll look. Unlike Ace's, Marco's visor was only tinted and not opaque, so he knew Ace could see the expression. "This is extremely delicate equipment. You don't have the training."

Ace cocked his head. _"How much training do you need to drive a go-cart with a pointy bit on the front?"_

One of Marco's eyebrows twitched. "It's not a go-cart, and that 'pointy bit' is more expensive than your entire arsenal."

Ace made a sound of quiet interest. _"Really?"_

"Yes. This will go faster without you distracting me, by the way."

_"Fine."_

* * *

_**Please review.**_


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 11**

_Ace_

"We're not going to Farrow?" Ace dropped into the copilot's chair, peering at the screen Marco'd pulled in front of him. He could make out a navigation plan that would take them close to, but not onto, the last planet before the Grand Line. "I thought you were on a personal mission to hit every sizeable rock between Mainline and the asteroid belt."

Marco chewed his lip. "Farrow has near-constant storms. While it isn't a gas giant like Ripoklia, odds are it'll be a risky choice to try to land on it. I'll land us if the weather is good, but I'm not confident."

Ace used a toothpick to poke at something in his teeth. "Not even one of its moons?"

"No." Marco's voice was oddly serious. Ace frowned. They'd only left Ava a couple of days ago. Had something changed? "The IPEC released the report on the UBMC activity within its ranks yoi."

That would do it. Ace leaned forward. Marco adjusted the screen so Ace could see it better when Marco pulled up the report.

"I'm sure the ISPC will put out one of its own shortly—"

Ace snorted, thinking about the harried secretaries barely scraping by amid all the meat-headed mercenaries.

"—but, well, the news isn't good."

Ace scanned the first few paragraphs, a chill slowly spreading through his muscles. "You're joking."

"If we hadn't recovered the information from that base and raised the alarm about infiltrations, this could have been much worse."

Worse? How? Ace kept reading. The UBMC had been weeks away from toppling the IPEC with an army of double agents. His sights locked on one sentence and suddenly he was standing. "Take us out of slipspace."

"What? Why?"

"I need to make a call."

Confused but trusting, Marco obligingly began the procedure while Ace hurried up to his room. He nearly slammed his head into the side of the hatch leading to the second floor when the ship decelerated.

His slate was exactly where he'd left it on the bed. He fumbled with it, fingers tapping impatiently on the bezel as it booted up the video-chat program. It took another couple minutes for the encryption to set up, and by the time Ace was actually placing the call, his whole body was a vibrating, twitchy mess.

Luffy picked up on the third ring. _"Ace?"_

The fear left Ace in a dizzying rush. He collapsed against the wall, sliding down until his butt hit the floor. "You're okay."

It took the signal a few seconds to reach Luffy, but when it did, he just tilted his head in confusion. _"Yeah. Did something happen, Ace?"_

Did something happen. _Did something happen._

Ace dragged in a deep, shuddering breath. Old words echoed: Thatch, whacking him on the back of the head, full of exasperated fondness when he said _breathe, idiot_.

"Yeah," Ace managed, "something happened. Why the hell didn't you call after the explosion?"

Just saying it makes the floor unsteady all over again. That brief minute of terror after hearing about the bomb going off in the IPEC headquarters two days ago—supposedly a "terrorist attack" when everyone knew who was really behind it—and hearing nothing from Luffy.

Luffy's expression went through a couple jerky shifts as the connection momentarily got patchy before clearing up. _"It's been really busy. We're not s'posed to place calls, either." _Someone next to Luffy said something, and a second later, Luffy tilted the camera so Ace could see a young boy with a prominent nose and curly hair held back by a bandana. _"Ace, meet Usopp! He 'n I are hiding in the same broom closet!"_

"Why are you two in a broom closet?"

Usopp, as the stranger in this conversation, deferred to Luffy, who took up the task with gusto. _"Well, like I said, calling is a bit illegal, so when you called I had to hide, but we were in the middle of a super crowded hallway—'cause everyone's got something to do right now—so Usopp dragged me in here and shut the door."_

"Right," Ace muttered. Why did he even bother asking? Still, "I'm glad you're okay, Luffy. Next time, at least message me, okay?"

_"Okay!"_

Reassured, Ace switched topics. "Did you get the last transfer? The guy I had to go through this time wasn't my usual."

_"Yup, I got it. Nami's helping me budget everything out this month, so I'll be fine."_

That was a relief. While Ace knew Nami was notorious for sticky fingers, she seemed to have a genuine friendship with Luffy. And if her tendencies got the better of her, well, Ace could always have a chat with her the next time he was on-planet.

"All right, I'll go, then, so you don't get in trouble. You stay safe, okay? And let me know if anything happens. I worry, you know."

Luffy's grin warmed his heart. _"You got it! Bye, Ace!"_

The connection cut out before Ace could get in his farewell. "Bye," he said quietly to the blank screen. He tipped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, slate sliding through slack fingers to clatter onto the floor.

He was getting too old for this.

Marco was still in the cockpit when Ace ventured back downstairs a few minutes later.

"I copied the report to the ship's storage," he said when Ace sat in the copilot's chair. "Figured you'd want to give it a better look." Marco actually glanced back at him. "How's your brother?"

Ace very deliberately focused on the screen he pulled out from the wall. Marco had stumbled in on a couple of their weekly conversations, but Ace wasn't about to give him the details of their relationship. "Alive."

He settled more comfortably in the chair while he read. Marco carefully boosted them back into hyperspace, the cockpit glass tinting to block out the worst of the light.

The report was comprehensive, and that was putting it lightly. The first page was all about the explosion at IPEC headquarters in the North Blue; some kind of bomb snuck into the central hub. Thirty-four dead, scores more injured. The whole place would remain in lockdown for the rest of the week.

Ace scanned through block after block of text that detailed an extensive infiltration plan by the UBMC. The IPEC had lost seven planetary bases total: one on Oceana—in the East Blue, really just a massive telescope—two on Gashia, the planet one closer to the sun than Oceana, two on Bystal, and the twin observation stations on Eos and Ios, two moons of Farrow. Recovery crews hadn't found anything; Marco and Ace had truly been lucky in that respect on Bystal.

He spared a second to think about the watch. It was still in his jumpsuit pocket; he kept forgetting to take it out, and he didn't really have anywhere to put it. He'd forgotten it when they arrived at Mainline, otherwise he would've tried to pawn it off before things went to hell.

As the report went through each lost base in painstaking detail, Ace wondered what had prompted the UBMC to make their move. Clearly, they'd intended to take out all of the IPEC in one fell swoop, but something had forced their hand. The IPEC was wounded, not out.

The first time he read the sentence, its significance didn't register. And then he read it again, and his whole body went cold.

"Marco?"

"Yes?"

"You said this report went out to every member of IPEC, right?"

"Yes, it did, why?"

Ace swallowed, the single line of text burning like a fire in his vision. He closed his eyes and saw it like an afterimage.

_Senior IPEC engineer Marco and ISPC agent Ace D. Portgas uncovered the following information from the Harrow's Fjord outpost…_

He couldn't even process the rest. _ISPC agent Ace D. Portgas. _

Luffy would read this. Or, more likely, someone else would and let it slip around him. It was over. His whole charade was done, and it wasn't even something he'd been able to control. He'd blown his chance to come clean himself, and the universe didn't hand out second tries.

"Is something wrong yoi?" Marco asked, snapping Ace back to the present moment and not millions of miles away to where his brother was hurtling towards one of the worst revelations of his young life, towards the realization that his older brother had been lying this whole goddamned time.

Is something wrong. He chuckled, unable to stop himself, but shook off Marco's concern. "Don't worry your wiry little brain about it, techhead. You're paying me to protect you, not tell stories."

Too caught up in distracting himself with the rest of the report, Ace missed the flash of genuine worry in Marco's eyes.

* * *

They pulled out of slipspace as they passed Farrow, mostly for the view. Farrow was a spectacular planet, although no one lived there. Vibrant streaks of color swirled across a desolate landscape barely hidden by a smattering of sulfur clouds. Great clouds of dust puffed up from the thousands of automated mining operations trundling over the surface, stripping Farrow of its invaluable ores. Oceana'd had just enough of the elements that made up Plate to get humanity to Farrow, which was all but made of the stuff.

Ace had only been out this far once before in his first year with Whitebeard. The old man had laughed upon seeing Ace's face pressed against the glass on the observation deck. The memory made something in Ace's chest twinge, but the pain was old and familiar. He pushed it down and focused on the absolute chaos wracking the northern hemisphere. The whole thing looked like a snow globe shaken too hard.

"Huh," Marco said, tapping his screen in the pilot's chair before he glanced at Ace. "Storms on Farrow are interfering with scans. Magnetic field, too."

"No surface scans?" Ace said with false pity. "Your poor, scientist heart."

"Laugh all you want, but monitoring the rate of resource depletion on Farrow is actually extremely important. It's one of the reasons we established the bases on Eos and Ios."

They both went quiet at the reminder. Ace peered out into the space around Farrow, but the moons were likely on the far side of the planet. He caught a glimpse of a couple of the smaller moons. Bovekk in particular hooked his eye with a massive jet of lava that extended for miles out of its crust before crashing back down to the hellish surface.

No base there, that was for sure. No one was that stupid.

"We'll be at the Grand Line by tonight," Marco said, adjusting their course to compensate for a rogue comet passing through the system picked up by a long-range observatory. There was no way they would hit it, but it was best to be safe. "Any safety precautions you insist we take?"

Ace snorted. "What do you think I'll say? Strap a bunch of air bags to the exterior so we just bounce off the floating space rocks?"

That got a hint of a smile. "Slipspace it is, then."

Farrow's swirling rainbow blurred into a hypnotic medley. Ace tore his eyes away and stretched. "Well, if you don't need me, I'm gonna work out. Scream if we're about to get shot by any UBMC ships."

"I think I know the standard protocol by now."

* * *

Three days later, Ace guided them between two massive asteroids that spun in slow, lazy circles. A couple smaller rocks—about the size of the F22 if not smaller—moved faster, but nothing was hurtling at them. It was all very slow and calm. Most of the rocks had miles between them. Way farther out, telescopes had taken pictures of asteroids hundreds of miles apart and more. Too bad it they were too far away to be a viable route.

"I think I'm getting the hang of this," he said. From the copilot's chair, Marco raised an eyebrow.

"We've been in and out three times already. I would hope so."

"How're your samples coming?"

"The equipment on here, with the exception of a couple specialized tools, is fairly rudimentary. I had to generalize for each planet, so I don't have anything specially made for this. I'm analyzing what I can. Something in these rocks is interfering with our scanners, and I want to know what."

"Could it be the same as Farrow?"

"That's my current hypothesis." Marco thinned his lips in displeasure. "It would've been good to get more current samples from Farrow, but it's too risky with those storms. They move too quickly once they're in full swing to make any descent safe."

Ace dipped them under a particularly massive specimen. He craned his neck to get a look at the underside, which had traces of ice. Marco had made him land on this beast the previous day. "Discover any aliens in that space ice?" he asked, falling back into his seat.

"Not yet."

"Aw."

"There's still a chance." Marco's voice contained a hint of humor. "I doubt we'll get those little green men you painted by the airlock."

"I feel like the eyes were too big. What do you think?"

"I've seen worse. That mural in the central hub made by a bunch of grade-schoolers, for one."

"Really? Where? I've been through there way too many times and I've never noticed it."

"It's on the way to the Wing Four platform. They've done their best to hide it behind advertisements and kiosks."

"Anything for the children."

"Exactly."

The computer beeped a warning.

"I know, I know, I see it," Ace muttered, taking the ship on an easy curve. A couple asteroids passed around them, the fastest-moving ones Marco and Ace had seen so far. The sloop could outrace them with half its engines shot.

Marco was busy taking notes on asteroid movement patterns. He suspected that all the horrible accidents in the Grand Line were due to weird gravitational or magnetic anomalies; Ace figured it was more mundane than that. People did stupid things in space. There was a whole chapter in the ISPC manual on "space madness" for a reason. Still, he couldn't deny that his skin was prickling out here.

One of the nose scanners was fritzing. Ace bumped the display with a scowl. It threw a few more error codes before stabilizing. He'd have to fix that the next time they landed on an asteroid or exited the field.

The cockpit languished in comfortable quiet for several minutes, interrupted only by the quiet feedback of the ship through its monitors.

"Whatever is interfering with our sensors, we're heading towards a massive patch of it yoi," Marco warned. Ace peered out the glass at a distant cluster of asteroids much closer together than the ones around them.

"Bet it's worth checking out," Ace said. Marco grunted his agreement.

"I think I've got enough data to run simulations," he said.

"Simulations?"

"I've been pulling data on the movements of all the asteroids around us each time we move through the asteroid field. There's enough now to potentially catch anything strange going on. Hold on; the holotable should be able to display it."

"I'm not leaving this chair until we're out of the Grand Line."

"I know, I've got this covered. Be careful."

"Yeah, yeah." He was already being careful. Both he and Marco had their jumpsuits and helmets on, fully prepped for the worst-case scenario. If they got hit by anything, the sloop's hull could breach, and then they'd be real glad to have oxygen strapped to their backs.

It would be considered overkill if Ace's family hadn't died out here. He and Marco were wordlessly steering clear of that stretch of space, neither of them ready to face or even mention the skeletons it contained. Recovery crews had already gotten what bodies they could find, but there was no dispelling the taint of death.

This whole place gave Ace the creeps. He loved exploring, he really did, even if he constantly gave Marco shit about it. He disparaged the guy's experiments and tests and samples but constantly asked for updates on them. He was pretty sure Marco was on to him, but that same excitement just didn't translate here. There was something wrong in the Grand Line. Something…something strange.

Ace had been having dreams. Weird dreams. He usually wasn't much of a dreamer, but the last couple nights—ever since their first jaunt through the Grand Line—he kept dreaming of fire.

"Ace?" Marco called from the back, voice amplified by his helmet's external speakers.

"Yeah?"

"Watch that asteroid at our six o'clock. It's oblong."

"Really?" Ace pulled them wider of it just to be sure, even though it looked completely spherical. Then he realized that yes, it was oblong, and the miles-long thing was coming down on where they'd just been like the universe's slowest flyswatter.

"Oblong," Ace repeated, shaking his head. "Right." He adjusted course again, then smacked the instrument panel with a scowl. "We're about three minutes from that cluster and I'm losing all sensors. Got anything back there?"

"No, nothing. Mind the close pass."

Ace tilted the sloop just to be safe as they flew right over the last asteroid in their way. He spared a glance at its pockmarked surface, only to frown. Some of those craters looked—

Everything went white. The explosion nearly threw Ace out of his chair, and only a last-second death grip on the armrest kept him in place. All the red emergency lights flicked on as a warning blared about shield and hull integrity.

"Marco!" Ace yelled, struggling to get the ship back under control before the damaged engines sent them crashing into the asteroid. "Hey!" He switched to radio. "Marco, answer me!"

_"I'm here yoi," _Marco gasped. _"We've got a breach in the loading bay. What the hell was that?"_

"I don't know. Some kind of explosion." Ace flicked a couple of switches and a few alarms shut off, but the whole cockpit was still strobing red and white. With his other hand, he reached for his seat's harness. "We've lost shields and the main engine is on the fritz. Find a seat and strap in; I gotta get us—"

He caught a glimpse of it. Just a glimpse: a green light out of the corner of his eye suddenly turning red as the proximity sensor tripped.

He didn't even have time to flinch.

* * *

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	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 12**

_Marco_

One moment Marco was desperately pulling a chair out of the wall. The next, the wall was on fire and Marco was getting sucked out into space. He flipped, unable to stop himself while the whole universe spun in a nauseating loop. Marco activated his jetpack just enough to slow down his spinning.

"Ace?" he called.

Static.

"Ace?"

Static.

Marco swallowed and then froze when the wreckage of the F22 interrupted his view. Their ship was little more than a flaming wreck until the last of the oxygen burned up. Warped sheets of metal drifted in the vacuum. He couldn't see any sign of Ace, but he was already far away and still moving fast. Ace could be out there.

"Ace, answer me yoi." Still nothing. Marco's voice cracked for the first time in thirty years. "I need verbal confirmation."

Around him, the rock behemoths kept moving in their slow, inevitable paths. What had hit them? They had been close to an asteroid, yes, but asteroids didn't explode when you got too close—and they'd been hit twice in close succession. The first explosion took out their shields and damaged their hull. The second tore them apart.

And took Ace with it.

Marco closed his eyes. His head was pounding. His suit had taken the brunt of the explosion that the sloop hadn't absorbed, but he was still battered and bruised. Probably concussed, too.

He had three days' worth of water and oxygen if he stretched it. He slowed his breathing, ignoring how his pounding heart demanded he panic. Where was he headed? It looked like…deeper into the Grand Line. The force of the explosion and the suction into space had launched Marco at speed away from the ship. He was too far from any asteroids to even try landing on any of them, never mind that the impact—at the speed he was currently traveling—would break bones.

_Think_, he told himself, but there was nothing his brain could do here. He just had to wait and see if anything useful crossed his path.

If he didn't asphyxiate first.

* * *

Marco woke to the uncomfortable feeling of an empty stomach. He'd been drifting in and out of sleep just to pass the time. His suit offered a couple of simple games to play—a modification Thatch had shown him, actually—which were nice, but he could only play Pong for so long before the blips and beeps drove him mad.

His suit had been attempting to track his distance while he slept. He was deep in the Grand Line, now, deeper than any IPEC expedition had ever gone.

Well, deeper than any that had ever returned, more like.

His suit beeped a warning, his limited sensors detecting an asteroid in his path. He carefully oriented himself to face in the direction he was travelling. It was impossible to completely stop himself from spinning—the adjustments required were too minute for his jetpack—but he could face in roughly the same direction for half an hour or so at a time.

His eyes widened. That was no asteroid. That was a planetoid. A moon. Could it have been knocked out of orbit during the system's formation? It had a crater large enough to justify that. Easily dwarfing all the nearby asteroids, it was directly in Marco's way. He was going to hit it. No, he corrected, setting his jaw. He was going to land on it.

In the end, his moon landing wasn't nearly as exciting as his first helljump. Gravity wasn't as much of a factor as sheer momentum. Marco's knees buckled when he hit the surface, but he didn't need to roll. He'd had enough time to slow down beforehand. It helped that he'd landed in an absolutely massive crater.

He jumped experimentally and went several yards into the air before coming back down. He swallowed. Severely reduced gravity. He'd have to be careful.

Eyeing the crater walls, Marco spun in a slow circle. He wasn't getting anything on radio, not that he'd expected to, and his suit's scanners weren't meant for large-scale sweeps. Crouching, Marco placed a hand on the dusty surface. A pulse shot out of his palm and a scrolling feed opened up on his HUD as the vibrations spread out and then returned. Looked like solid rock for—

Or not. Marco stood and looked right, where the short-range scan had indicated some kind of opening in the surface. The closer he got, the more obvious it seemed. A smaller impact crater within the larger one had pushed rock over the opening, obscuring it from above, but it was clearly visible from this angle once he was looking for it.

He couldn't talk and waste oxygen, but his inner dialogue kicked into full gear.

_Okay, Marco, you're on a planetoid or possibly a former moon adrift in the Grand Line with no ship and no backup. You've got two days' worth of oxygen left. You can either sit here and stare at asteroids or investigate the unusual space cave._

He winced. The addition of "space" in front of cave was undoubtedly something he'd picked up from Ace. Still, it was an unusual feature. A planetoid like this didn't have visible water and any that it _did_ have should have frozen eons ago, long before any cave complexes could be formed, much less any as intricate as this one seemed to be.

It was, in a word, suspicious. And the last time he and Ace had entered a suspicious cave, they'd been chased out by a horde of angry, territorial dophages.

_Ah, but really, _Marco mused, _what have I got to lose?_

He went into the cave. His HUD flipped to night vision and then flashed a low-light warning as the planetoid rotated enough to put Marco on its dark side so even the meager light that would have come through the cave entrance went away. Without any other option, Marco cracked one of his two emergency glowsticks and held it up. The green light painted the cave walls, which were all disturbingly smooth.

Tracing a hand over the rock, Marco tried to make sense of it. It looked…melted, almost. Definitely liquid at some point. But how would it form caves like this? If they'd been made while the whole planet was still in a magma state, these areas of empty space should have been flooded out of existence.

Something echoed. Marco froze, ears straining to pick up another rush of sound, but none came. When he played back the last couple seconds' audio from his suit's hourly logs, he heard nothing except his own footsteps.

He wasn't going space-mad, was he?

Shaking his head, Marco ventured deeper. Even if he was going mad, he wanted to get to the bottom of this cave mystery before he lost his senses entirely. If anyone else ever discovered this moon, they could unearth the logs from his suit and decide for themselves if he suffered from delusions.

The cave sloped steadily downwards. Marco clipped the glowstick to his belt and watched each step. None of this looked truly natural. The timelines, even just the geology didn't match up with Marco's experience and lessons. Worse, the farther he journeyed, the more frequently he heard those bursts of…something. It wasn't any kind of sound he'd heard before. Lilting, almost, like a bird's call. His suit never picked it up, but Marco knew for sure he was hearing something.

His temperature gauge also went up incrementally, which was odd. This planetoid's core should have burned out millions, if not billions of years ago. Some of the impact craters on it—especially the massive one that had probably knocked it out of orbit—could only have happened when the solar system was forming. It was too unstable, too battered, too _small_ to hold heat for this long.

And yet the numbers kept ticking higher as Marco ventured lower. The…voice?...sounded each time he encountered a fork or junction, directing him through the maze. Marco passed through tens of small chambers where winding caves intersected. Every single one had the same melted walls as the rest. As he walked, he logged each turn. If there was nothing in this planetoid, he at least wanted to die with a view of the stars.

Not that he could stop moving now even if he was on death's door. His curiosity to know what was in these caves had shifted into a need, a pull.

There was something down here, and it was calling him.

He reached the center almost without realizing it. One last junction, one last turn, and suddenly his glowstick couldn't reach the ceiling anymore. The floor bottomed out under Marco's boot and he slipped. The sides were too smooth to grab. Marco tried his best to slow down, but there wasn't much he could do. He didn't get going very fast, and eventually, the slope smoothed out into an almost flat plain.

Shaky, Marco got to his feet and tried to take stock of where he was. A few of the other caves had worked more like slides, but this one was different. For one, he was pretty sure it was more of a cavern, easily hundreds of feet in diameter and possibly spherical.

Doubt flooded through him. Was he in the center of the planetoid? That was impossible. It should be solid.

Then again, the gravity of this place was far less than it should have been…

Marco squinted when sudden light lanced across the cavern. His visor quickly compensated, but he still had to blink spots out of his eyes. Was there someone else here?

The light didn't die, but it diminished to a point that allowed Marco to look straight at the source. The source high, _high_ above his head. The source that was getting closer and singing like Ace in the shower.

Marco stared, transfixed, as the glowing _thing_ dropped from the very center of the spherical chamber to a spot just in front of him. The closer it got, the less it glowed, until it stopped at chest height and hovered. Its odd, blue-gold halo began to fade, and Marco reached out on reflex, catching the fruit before it could fall.

It was heavier than it looked. Marco turned it over in his hands as his suit's sensors threw all kinds of exceptions. It didn't know what Marco was looking at. _Marco_ didn't know what Marco was looking at.

The voice was quiet again, but the magnetism remained. And, unbelievably, it was changing the very atmosphere. Marco watched the oxygen counter tick up with rising incredulity and then realized that the temperature had stopped at a perfectly comfortable seventy degrees.

Hardly able to believe what he was doing, Marco released the seal on his helmet and, cradling the space fruit against his stomach, pulled off the thing that was supposed to be keeping him alive. He took a deep breath. The air was musty, old, but breathable.

His stomach, still empty, rumbled.

"This is insane," Marco whispered, and ate the fruit. He nearly gagged. It tasted _awful_. Easily the most disgusting thing he'd ever eaten. Still, he couldn't stop himself, and when it was done, the taste disappeared. His knees gave out under him. His whole body tingled, nerve endings lighting up with static. Fingers scrabbled for his helmet and he barely got it on before his vision grayed out and he collapsed.

* * *

To his great surprise, Marco woke up. To his even greater surprise, he woke up _on fire._ That snapped him out of his confusion faster than a face-full of cold water. He bolted to his feet, staggering back and windmilling his arms only for his brain to kick in a second later. He stopped. He dropped. He rolled.

And the flames didn't go out.

Only then, panting, his face a couple inches from the dusty ground, did he realize that his suit wasn't blaring with warnings. Blinking in confusion, Marco peered at the readout. He called up a more detailed diagnostics screen. Ran a full self-diagnostic. Everything came back green.

Marco's gaze drifted back to his right arm, which had gentle blue-gold flames trailing from it. _Are you sure?_

It didn't hurt, either. Marco pushed himself into a sitting position and stared down at his burning arm. Carefully, he reached over with his other hand and held his palm over the flames. His temperature readout changed, but not much. He waited until the readout held steady, which it eventually did—at 98.6 degrees.

Marco blew out a breath. The flames jumped a little. He then realized that they were spreading, or maybe just cropping up in other places: his legs, his chest, even his head. It took his left ear being changed for Marco to realize that the fire wasn't _on_ him. It _was_ him. He held out both his arms, staring in fascination as they shifted between solid flesh-and-suit and ethereal flames. None of it hurt at all.

The voice came back, only now it was quieter, closer. In his head. Marco blinked.

He was going space-mad. He was going utterly, certifiably insane.

The thing in his head rolled with amusement and then sent waves of calm through Marco's mind. It was…reassuring him? Its mission apparently done, the strange presence curled up in a little-used corner and summarily excused itself from Marco's focus, leaving Marco to deal with the flames on his own.

He stood on wobbly legs that grew steady when his vision didn't gray out again. He took a drink of water to remind himself that he could and then paused. It felt like his stomach was empty again with how the water had splashed into it. But that fruit had easily been larger than his palm.

_Or maybe you imagined the fruit, the fire, and you're trying to find logic in a hallucination._

Marco shook his head. He focused on the flames, which were still burning a cool blue and gold. No smoke.

Old legends snaked through his mind, offering possibility where science failed. Marco set his jaw. He wouldn't entertain anything like that until he was somewhere he wouldn't suffocate. The oxygen from earlier was dissipating fast, and while it had topped off his O2H2O pack, he still had only three days to live. He had to get back to the surface.

Suit and memory guiding him, Marco spent the majority of his grueling trip out of the planet's core trying to figure out how to control his fire. It was far easier than he anticipated; when he willed the fire to go out, it went out. Trying to call it back was harder. How could he flex a muscle that didn't exist?

By the time he saw starlight again, he had it roughly under control. The default seemed to be no flames; once the presence in his head fully settled down—producing an odd doubling to Marco's vision before it cleared—the fire disappeared and only reappeared when he called on it.

The planetoid's surface was just as desolate as before. The clock indicated that roughly fourteen hours had passed since he first entered the cave system. Marco scanned the crater and settled on climbing the shortest-looking section of the wall. Before he could take a single step, however, the fire came back, and with it, the thing in his head. They all unfolded at once, leaving Marco no room to get a word in edgewise as the blue and gold swallowed him whole.

He closed his eyes for all the good it would do. When nothing happened, he cracked one open, and then gasped. His whole body was fire—no, not quite. It was fire with a shape. He flexed an arm, only it didn't feel quite like an arm anymore. A wing? Yes, a wing. Two of them. His whole body was different, full of muscles he didn't know forming a shape he could barely believe. And it was all on fire.

A hysterical laugh threatened to break through. Marco swallowed it, barely, but the thought that triggered it remained.

He was a _phoenix._

* * *

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	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 13**

_Marco_

Flying was weird. Marco also sucked at it. There was a reason he was an engineer, not a pilot. Still, he figured out how to get in the air and stay there, mostly. The reduced gravity helped a lot. Switching between human and phoenix? Much weirder. Marco marked it as the single most disconcerting thing he'd ever done and knew it would never be knocked from its number one spot.

After a full day of experimentation, he was running out of ways to keep himself occupied. Trying to leave the Grand Line without a ship was lunacy, but it was quickly becoming his only option. Better to make an attempt than give up, right?

He sighed and sat on a nearby rock. Realistically, what could he do? Changing into a phoenix and then holding that form took energy, so he couldn't just do that indefinitely and float through space. Never mind how long a journey like that would take. Two days of oxygen. Half that in water.

It wasn't like a ship would just fall…out of the…sky…

Marco blinked and looked closer. That shape coming out of the shadow of an asteroid definitely _wasn't_ another, smaller asteroid.

He was on his feet. Didn't remember standing. Didn't remember taking off running, either, but here he was. He bolted for the highest rock formation he knew he could reach in time and bounded up it, FlexTech absorbing the low-gravity impacts. A little farther, a little faster. Desperation sent lines of fire racing down his limbs and quite suddenly he was in the air, jetpack propelling him as fast as its design would allow.

When he got close, he saw the UBMC logo stamped on the side of the sleek ship. This wasn't a fighter jet, just a scouting vehicle. He knew the second they noticed him: the ship turned to face him, cockpit glass tinted black.

Marco allowed himself a grim smile. They would try to avoid him in a second; he'd make them freeze before they got the chance.

Fire roared up around him. The ship held steady until Marco crashed into it. As much as he was a firebird, there was still solid mass under all the flames. He scrabbled for purchase, claws catching on a seam. He yanked himself close, heart pounding, and waited.

He didn't have to wait long. While there was no sound in space, the vibrations caused by the airlock door opening carried across the ship easily enough. Marco hunched down farther, eyes fixed on the edge of the ship. Half a minute passed, and then a _very_ trepidatious marine cleared the ship's horizon. His visor wasn't tinted—surprising Marco; he'd gotten too used to Ace's heavily modified gear—and his eyes were wide as he approached. He spoke into his radio. Marco read his lips.

"Uh, yeah, it's…it's definitely here." The marine's magnetic boots clamped to the ship's roof. "How the hell would I know? You ever seen a flying blue space bird before? Yeah, that's what I thought." He swallowed. "Uh, no. I don't think it's attacking."

Marco almost pitied the boy. He looked young, only a couple years older than Ace. That pseudo-pity evaporated with the marine's next words.

"No, doubt this thing tripped the mines. It's not big enough. Something else did. But it's definitely what the sensors were picking up."

Mines. There were _mines_ in the Grand Line, and the UBMC had put them here. Why?

The answer all but slapped him. The fruit. _Of course_. Why else? But then why wouldn't they just take it?

Marco's thoughts drifted to the caverns. Even with a hundred men, there was no way to canvas the entire planetoid, and all the natural interference completely nullified any attempts to just run deep scans. So maybe they didn't know exactly where the fruits were, but they knew they were in the Grand Line, and they'd be damned if they let anyone else take them.

A low growl rumbled out of Marco's chest. The marine couldn't hear it; he was taking slow steps closer to Marco.

"All right, birdie, you wanna explain how you got here? And why you looked like a man before you exploded? Easy, now. Don't wanna hurt ya."

Marco scowled, but the expression didn't translate. Didn't want to hurt him? Tell that to the hundreds of innocents the UBMC had killed over the years. He let the marine get even closer, close enough to touch, before he made his move.

In a rush of blue and gold, Marco flew by the marine, looped around the roof's edge, and curled into the airlock. He caught the handle with a claw and pulled it closed, or tried to; the marine's safety line got in the way.

Thinking on his feet had never been Marco's strong suit. That was Ace's area of expertise. The mercenary's reflexes were unparalleled. Marco was just an engineer.

_An engineer with phoenix powers._

After breaking the camera peering down from a high corner, Marco let the flames burn out. He was breathing hard, sweat sliding down his spine, but the change was worth it when the marine rushed into the airlock. Marco swiftly removed the stun baton from the holster on the marine's thigh he'd spotted earlier and jabbed it into the guy's ribs.

At least, that's what he tried to do. He got the stun baton but didn't even have time to hit the activation button before the marine tackled him. They wrestled on the airlock floor, only to drift upwards when the marine tried to slam Marco's head against the ground. Seeing the marine reaching for his gun. Marco desperately wedged his foot between them and shoved the marine out the airlock door. He didn't get far; the line went taut. In the brief second of reprieve, Marco reached for the stun baton, jetpack providing just enough push to let him close his fingers around it.

In that instant, a puff of blue and gold spread out from Marco's wrist. He frowned. He hadn't called the fire. Why—

Pain drowned out his thoughts. It disappeared quickly, but Marco gripped his wrist with his other hand, muscles aching with tension.

Three more puffs followed, the pain coming not long after. Marco spun in place to see the marine drifting in line with the airlock, gun raised. Panic clenched Marco's chest before logic kicked in. He couldn't let the marine keep firing. His suit's warning lights were flashing, but it hadn't been burned through.

Marco grabbed the marine's line, braced his feet against the interior frame of the airlock door, and yanked. When the marine got close, still firing, Marco jammed the baton into his chest. Electricity arced up the marine's suit before he went limp, suit systems—and brain—temporarily short-circuited.

The airlock was a bit tight with two full-grown men in it. Once Marco disconnected the line and made sure the marine was still out, he closed the outer door and hit the button to open the inner one. While the detox protocol ran, Marco kept his thumb hovering over the stun button, just waiting for any sign of resistance from the marine, but he was down and out.

When the inner door unlocked, artificial gravity kicked in with a vengeance. Marco struggled for a few seconds, knees and spine remembering a planetoid with far less pull to it before Marco forced them to remember decades spent in a much harsher environment.

He shouldered the door open and then shoved the unconscious marine through. He heard a yelp and took that as his cue. He jumped over the first marine's legs, body melting into flame as he tackled the second man, who was only half in his jumpsuit. His lasers passed harmlessly through Marco's flaming wings. He never saw the stun baton in Marco's left claw coming and fell to the floor, muscles twitching.

Reforming, Marco leaned against the wall, vision spinning. Sweat soaked his brow, but he couldn't afford to pass out now. He staggered through the small main cabin, rifling through various crates before he found a few zip-ties and some cord. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than kicking them out the airlock. He wasn't about to kill two marines in cold blood.

They were so young.

Satisfied with their restraints, Marco left the two marines in the tiny loading bay, then locked the door for good measure, just in case they somehow managed to break free. Then he slid into the pilot's chair, an armful of emergency rations in his lap. He queued up the last few hours' audio logs while he munched his way to a stomach not trying to digest the rest of his internal organs.

Ace had made flying through the Grand Line seem easy. It wasn't as difficult as the higher-level simulation routes, but having all those massive rocks drifting by was unnerving. In the time it took him to reach his destination, Marco learned two things:

First: that, immediately after the sloop had exploded, the marines had sent their fastest ship out from a nearby patrol group to check out the detonated mines.

Second: that the marines had only swung by the moon because something had been throwing off extremely strange amounts of interference—that "something" undoubtedly being Marco. Apparently, his phoenix form refused to be understood by technology. It explained why his suit simply didn't process it, especially since the phoenix transformation also changed the suit itself.

When Marco came upon the wreckage of the sloop, he expected…Well, he didn't know what he expected. All he knew was that the sight of the scattered metal and debris carved out a hollow space in his chest. When all scans for life came back empty and attempts to ping Ace's suit only returned static, that space ached.

Heart like lead, Marco turned the ship around and plotted a route out of the Grand Line. This ship didn't have a map of all the mines, but Marco could only assume they weren't common close to the near edge, otherwise he and Ace would've been hit far sooner.

He cleared the last rock and opened up the nav computer. He could stop at Mainline, or, better yet, a nearby IPEC outpost to resupply and explain—

A light on the dash made him frown. He was being hailed? He opened up the channel.

_"All right, you finally picked up." _The man on the other end cleared his throat. _"It is my great pleasure to announce that your ship is being seized. Don't resist; you're outnumbered and outmatched. Don't even think about a lightspeed jump, either. The second your engines so much as glow, we'll fire."_

Pirates?

_"As for how the boarding process is gonna go, well, don't worry. We'll handle the details. See you soon!"_

The radio clicked and went to static. Marco sat back in his chair, mind spinning. Did he have the energy to fight off pirates? _Could_ he fight off pirates? The only reason he'd triumphed over these two young marines was the element of surprise. Besides, he was pretty sure that if he tried to go full firebird again, he'd pass out.

What he would give for an overly-armed mercenary with a cocky attitude right about now.

The boarding was surprisingly uneventful. Marco was settled in his chair, watching the three ships that he could see stand guard in front of his commandeered vessel, when the ship jerked and a hollow boom echoed from the direction of the airlock. A few other thuds completed the symphony. Marco stood and leaned against the back of his chair, not trusting his legs to fully support his weight.

The inner door opened with a bang and three people in custom suits strode through. The first wore a black and blue suit, the second pink and orange, and the third white and green. There seemed to be no standardized outfit he could see.

"Are you the former owner of this vessel?" asked the man in front. Marco didn't answer, though he recognized the cadence from the radio. The man shrugged and nodded to his associates. "Search the place."

They disappeared into the cargo hold, only to reappear seconds later.

"There are two marines tied up in here," the pink one reported. A woman, judging by her voice. The blue one turned back to Marco, hands coming up to rest on his hips.

"Isn't that strange? And your suit…is that the IPEC logo?" He took a single step forward, one hand coming forward with a canister taken from his belt. The canister expanded, its bottom end ringing against the floor. The metal staff gleamed in the light. Marco braced himself. FlexTech could absorb a lot, but blunt weapons could do serious damage. He didn't want to test if he was immune to it if he didn't have to.

He forced himself to relax and raised his hands, palms up. "Why don't we talk this over yoi?"

Blue didn't move. "Yeah. Why don't we?"

* * *

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	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 14**

_Marco_

"So let me get this straight. You were leading a research expedition into the Grand Line."

Marco nodded.

"And, in the middle of this, you ran into a minefield, which the marines have desperately been keeping secret by sabotaging any IPEC station that thinks to point this way."

Another nod.

"You survived the explosion but got thrown onto the biggest rock this place has to offer, where you found…a Devil Fruit."

"Sounds all correct so far yoi," Marco said. They hadn't really been able to argue with his demonstration; fire like that wasn't easily produced.

The pirate Marco currently called Blue sighed.

"Right. After this, a marine ship sent to investigate the mines that blew up your ship and crewmate made a detour to investigate that rock. You hijacked it, piloted it out, and that's when we ran into you."

"That is what happened."

Blue sighed again. Marco raised an eyebrow. He'd removed his helmet as a sign of trust, although none of the other three had done the same. Nor had they given their names. Still, Marco wasn't dead, so that had to count for something.

"You know, I was really hoping this would be a simple smash 'n grab," Blue muttered. "This is gonna mean a whole bunch of paperwork."

"If you don't mind me asking," Marco said with deliberate calm, "why attack this ship yoi? I thought you had bigger targets."

"UBMC headquarters, you mean," Blue inferred. "Yeah, you don't win the war by charging to your death against the enemy castle. Still…"

Pink and Blue exchanged looks, and then Pink took charge. "We came after you because you—or, rather, this ship, I guess—split off from the rest of its patrol group. It was an opportunity we couldn't pass up. Didn't expect to run into a wanted IPEC engineer, though. Small system."

"Very," Marco agreed. The Revolutionary Army and the IPEC weren't allies, but they weren't enemies, either. It was a universal understanding that both went against the UBMC, and neither was active enough in the other's circles to actually get in the way. "I'm sure you can get information from the two crewmembers yoi."

"Offering them up, are you?"

"I can't really say no if you want them."

Blue tilted his head in a silent "fair enough." He then leaned forward. "Say, you wouldn't happen to know anything about a source of significant interference around here, would you? We got hit hard on approach."

"It's either because of the fruit I ate or a massive coincidence."

"Huh. At least you're honest."

Marco smiled grimly. "What would lying get me?"

"You have a point." Blue rubbed his chin, an effort thoroughly ruined by his helmet. "We will be taking this ship, but I would feel bad about booting you back into space." He glanced at his companions. They were clearly having a conversation judging by the gestures, but they must have turned their exterior speakers off, because Marco heard no words spoken. Finally, Blue turned back to face him.

"Decided my fate yoi?" Marco asked, affecting the same dry tone that seemed to bother Ace so much.

"We'll take you with us," Blue said. "But we just can't have you knowing where we're going, so."

Marco sighed. Blindfolding. Wonderful.

When they landed many hours later and Blue removed the blindfold, Marco blinked once, glanced around, looked into Blue's opaque visor, and said: "I didn't realize Farrow was such an ideal vacation spot this time of year."

Blue stilled, then groaned. "Scientists."

As they walked, Blue plied Marco for an explanation of how he'd known where they were. Marco, uncomfortable with the silence in the narrow underground corridor, obliged.

"We were only travelling for about a day. I suspect you did a loop in there somewhere to throw off my estimates, but even with that, the only planet in range would be Farrow. The Revolutionary Army wouldn't have a base on Eos or Ios because the IPEC is already there and the moons aren't large enough to support two covert operations. Bovekk is too hostile yoi."

Marco paused when they entered some kind of elevator. Blue's two companions were quiet, but both were keeping a close eye on Marco. "The descent was rough. When I last passed Farrow, the storms were quite active—the storms that conveniently interfere with all scanning equipment yoi. It just makes sense. The IPEC was looking at a base here, but that project kept getting deferred." Suspicion struck and Marco side-eyed Blue. "That wouldn't happen to have anything to do with your group, would it?"

Blue shrugged, voice breezy. "Who knows?"

Marco would have to pass his suspicions along, but for now, all he could do was follow the three revolutionaries into a small conference room that was disconcertingly sleek after the rough cave trek.

"Stay here," ordered Blue. "Leave without an escort, and you'll get shot. We'll have someone in here to talk to you soon."

The door closed. Marco was suddenly alone. He stared at the door, entirely unsure what to do with himself. While blindfolded, he had distracted himself with speculation on where he was headed and fitful sleep. Now, however, there was nothing. He _could_ speculate on what the Revolutionaries were going to do with him, but he truly did not want to. At the very least, it would be indefinite detention. He now knew they had a base on Farrow; they couldn't risk that information getting out.

Additionally, Marco had eaten a Devil Fruit, and Blue had been particularly interested in that detail. They were going to want something from him, most likely.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He thought about the sloop, its wreckage still drifting through the Grand Line, and about Ace, whose body was lost to space. He swallowed. He was going to have to tell Ace's kid brother—Luffy, he was pretty sure—what had happened. The two had obviously been close. It wasn't going to be easy.

Of course it wasn't. He'd gotten Ace killed. Not intentionally, and not in any way he could've anticipated, but the fact remained: Ace was dead.

God.

Marco's suit tracked another fifteen minutes passing before anyone else came in. Marco removed his helmet, setting it on the table.

His visitor—interviewer?—was a woman some ten years his junior. Her smooth black hair fell just past her shoulders as she took a seat opposite Marco.

"Robin," she said without preamble, holding out her hand over the table. Marco awkwardly shook it.

"Marco, but I think you know that."

He got the ghost of a smile, but Robin schooled it into neutrality when she tapped a folder against the table. She opened it to reveal Marco's IPEC personnel file, which Marco knew was supposed to be confidential. "You've been a member of the InterPlanetary Exploration Corps for twenty-two years."

"Joined when I was seventeen yoi."

Robin hummed and paged through the file. Marco wasn't fooled in the slightest. Blue had radioed _someone_ on their approach, and while Marco hadn't been able to hear any of the conversation, the Revolutionaries had known he was coming. This was not Robin's first time reading his file.

"You have some rather remarkable achievements under your belt," Robin mused. "Multiple engineering awards, three patents…and you served with Whitebeard for the year before his death."

Marco lips thinned into a humorless line. So that was what this was about. "I did."

"What did you do as a member of his crew?"

"I was largely an assistant to the other members of his crew. He let me aboard because of my expertise in geological features and solar system formation."

"I see." She paused. Deliberately. "And you were aware of his intent to recruit you as a formal member of his crew, yes?"

Marco's mind went blank. "What?"

"I said—"

"I heard what you said." He sat back, reeling. "I just…I never knew yoi. No one told me."

Robin allowed him a moment to process, her expression softening minutely. "My apologies. I thought you knew."

"No." Marco took a deep breath. "I didn't."

It explained a hell of a lot about those last three weeks, though. Everyone acting weirdly towards him, congratulations for no reason; the list went on.

Shaking his head, Marco refocused on Robin. "So, what's the point of all these questions yoi? It seems like you're just confirming what you already know."

"We are," Robin admitted. "Someone made recent changes to your file to mark you as KIA."

Marco's chair crashed to the floor. "What?"

"Please sit down, Marco."

Begrudgingly, he recovered his chair and sat.

"It was likely one of your colleagues. Per the IPEC ship specifications, your ship would have broadcast the emergency signal in its last moments. There was only one assumption to make."

"And Ace?"

"I'm afraid we have not come across any remains of your ISPC contractor."

"It was naïve to hope."

"Optimistic," Robin corrected gently, and Marco got the distinct impression he was being patronized. He sat a little straighter.

"Now, you claim to have eaten a Devil Fruit. Do you have evidence of this?"

Marco held up a hand. Unnatural fire licked at his skin and disappeared a second later. "Is that sufficient?"

Robin blinked, pen poised over the file for a brief moment before she shook herself and nodded. "Yes, thank you. Are you aware of the full extent of your abilities?"

"Uh, no. I heal quickly, and I…"

Robin glanced up. "You…?"

"I turn into a bird."

"Pardon?"

Marco knew his face was a little red, but he couldn't help it. Saying it out loud made it sound ridiculous, and while it was, it had seemed much cooler in the moment. "A phoenix. I can turn into a phoenix."

Robin's eyes were lit with interest, but she maintained her professionalism as she took notes. "Very well."

"You still haven't told me what all this is for yoi."

"I have not." She finished writing and set down her pen. "You, Marco, are being recruited."

"I'm sorry?"

"There is an opening in the UBMC stronghold on Cysk, one we want to put an agent into. All our qualified operatives are otherwise occupied. This position requires extensive technical knowledge and experience."

"I don't work for you," Marco said, thrown off but still guarded. "Why would I do this?"

Robin offered him a sly, confident smile. "Because we will share all information you gather with the IPEC. You must understand, the IPEC is crippled. Not broken, but it is down and very vulnerable. We are doing what we can to protect it, but every scrap of intelligence is valuable, especially if it comes from a base we have yet to infiltrate. You will be doing the IPEC a greater service here than by going back to your base and sending legal emails."

Marco stared at the table for a long minute. "Why me?" he finally asked. "Clearly you've been watching me."

Robin's expression remained as enigmatic as it had been since the start. "We keep our eye on the best of the best. The time to act simply came earlier than anticipated."

He met Robin's cool gaze with one of his own. He'd been a head engineer for a reason. "Very well yoi. I'll do it. But I want our agreement in writing."

A small stack of papers slid across the table, followed by a pen. "I'll give you time to read it over. Your signature goes on the last page."

"Of course," Marco muttered.

* * *

"You'll be a ghost," Marco's escort warned. "No contact except for the designated drop points. Something goes wrong, you're on your own."

Marco swallowed, watching as Cysk came into view, a point of vibrant green orbiting around Durs. He shifted his shoulders, still unused to his disguise despite the crash course in espionage. "I know."

* * *

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	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 15**

_Ace_

He dreamed of fire. A great fire. A roaring inferno that stretched from sea to sky and devoured everything in its path.

He dreamed of that fire, but he woke to darkness. Ace stared out his visor in muddled confusion. His brain was full of fog and half-remembered pieces of whatever his mind had conjured up while he was out. What had he been doing?

A planet abruptly entered his line of sight, only to disappear a few moments later. He was spinning fast. Really fast. And moving fast. Hadn't he and Marco been in the Grand Line? Why was he by Farrow? And where in the hell was the ship?

"Marco?" he tried. The radio only returned static. Ace scowled. It had been damaged in the explosion.

_The explosion._

Ace's chest clenched. The ship was gone, Marco was probably gone too, and Ace was hurtling through space with one day's worth of oxygen left and no way to signal for help.

The next time he spun around, there was something blocking his view of Farrow. Something big. Something like a moon. And shooting out of that moon, heading directly for Ace, was a column of lava hot enough to melt his suit.

"Shit!"

Damaged thrusters sputtered but provided just enough force to get Ace out of the way. He was still going to hit Bovekk hard, and he desperately tried to slow his descent, but it was fruitless. His jetpack was shot.

Lava-veined ground loomed. Panic and helplessness eclipsed each other and left numb resignation in their wake.

Ace closed his eyes.

* * *

An alarm blared. Groaning, Ace squinted against the red light that painted the alien sky. "What?" he mumbled, voice thick and throat aching. His whole body ached, actually. The HUD slowly came into focus. His…his left wrist was…what was it? Oh. It was "reaching dangerous temperatures."

Ace tried to move, but a tidal wave of pain knocked the idea right out of his head. Panting, he tried to catalogue the sources, but there were too many, and his suit was too compromised to give him an accurate idea of what was going on.

The alarm intensified, now warning of a possible suit breach. Fear shot fire into Ace's veins. He yanked his left arm up, crying out into the silence of his own helmet. He caught a glimpse of something orange and black flying over his head.

Lava. Elevated environmental temperatures. He'd landed on Bovekk, and he was alive. Somehow.

Ace tried to move again. He was in the way of a lava flow. He _needed_ to move. The instant he tried, his muscles locked.

"C'mon," he whispered. His arm had fallen back by his side and the warnings were blaring all over again. Frustrated tears leaked out of his eyes. "Come on, _move_, dammit."

After ten agonizing seconds, Ace managed to get his fingers to twitch. Squeezing his eyes shut, he heaved with everything he had. Joints popped, muscles twinged, and broken bones splintered, but he was up. Spots danced in his eyes. If he focused on any of them, he'd get sucked in. He swallowed, lightheaded and soaked in sweat.

A trickle of lava had been pooling against his arm. Ace forced his other arm over and brushed off the bits that had hardened against his suit. In the most agonizing minute of his life, he rolled over, got his hands and feet under him, then slowly, so slowly, so terribly, painfully slowly, got to his feet.

The world went gray at the edges. For a second, Ace thought he was done—but he stayed up, and his vision cleared, and he thought he was okay.

Then the pain hit.

He screamed. It was all he could do. He screamed until he ran out of air and the first wave of agony had crested and passed. Blood pooled in his mouth. He gagged on it.

God, he could barely think. He began to walk—stagger, really—towards…he didn't even know. Somewhere. Elsewhere. Away.

Time twisted and slipped. He would blink awake only to find that he'd been walking the whole time. The bouts of unconsciousness kept increasing until he was out of it more often than not. Every time his eyes closed, he saw fire.

So much fire.

He opened his eyes one last time to see a cavern. In the center hovered a fruit covered in violent orange swirls.

After that, nothing.

* * *

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	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 16**

_Marco_

Walking with determination in every line of his body, Marco made quick progress. The other people in the hallway parted around him, some on reflex, others after it became clear he wasn't going to be the one to slide to one side. He took a right, another right, went up two flights of stairs, pushed through two sets of glass doors, and then stalked down the long, carpeted hallway.

The office, when he entered, was occupied.

"Sir," Marco said coolly. The vice-admiral glanced up from his computer. His expression instantly soured.

"Marco."

The papers in Marco's hand dropped onto the desk. "The reports yoi."

"Signed?"

"Yes."

"Ordered?"

"Yes."

The vice-admiral grunted. "You may go." When Marco didn't move, the vice-admiral glared. "_Dismissed_."

Marco's scowl broke through and the vice-admiral heaved a sigh.

"For god's sake, man, I am not fast-tracking your request for departmental transfer. You've been here a week."

"You have me in tectonics," Marco replied. "My specialty is surface-level formations. Sir."

The vice-admiral rolled his eyes. "Please. Everyone here knows you hate me. No need to pretend there's respect between us."

Marco fixed the vice-admiral with a heavy stare. "Then, with all due respect, you are wasting me."

After a silent contest of wills, the vice-admiral threw up his hands. "If I finally sign that damn paper, will you stop insisting on being the one to carry all the paperwork up here?"

"I will do my very best to never see you again yoi."

"Good."

* * *

"I cannot believe you actually managed to get that old coot to agree."

Marco filled his cup and took a drink. An errant strand of dyed-black hair fell into his cup and he fished it out. "It took some effort."

His closest colleague at this godforsaken base, Barry, snorted. "That's an understatement. You two have been throwing dirty looks at each other practically since you got here."

Debating between refilling his cup and not, Marco eventually tossed his cup into the small waste basket next to the water cooler. "He was the one who had me put into tectonics when that was not at all my area yoi."

"Well, I'll be sad to see you go. Things were just heating up, too."

Marco fell into step next to Barry. "How's that?"

"You haven't heard? Right, I guess you'd be busy getting your stuff moved. Bovekk has been throwing off all kinds of strange readings. Spikes in infrared radiation in particular—levels we haven't seen this time of year…_ever_, actually, I think."

Suddenly very aware of the tone of his voice, Marco chose his words carefully. "Isn't it entering its active cycle?"

"That's what Joanne suggested, but it's never been this active in the first year of its twenty-year cycle before."

"Records have to be set at some point."

"I suggested a flyby to get up-close visual confirmation. Maybe Farrow's storms are impacting the magnetic field enough to affect its moons."

"To be fair, we can monitor all of that from here."

"You sound exactly like Jem."

Marco's lips twisted into a frown at the thought, but he didn't have a choice. "Just think about it in terms of budget, then. If you take funds to send a ship or three out there to confirm what we already know, another project isn't going to get funded, and another department is going to come after your head."

Barry grumbled. "Here for a week and you're already better at all this politics stuff than I am."

"It's a curse."

"Yeah, yeah. How do you like the new department? Tectonics is boring without you."

"Better offices."

"Really?"

Marco nodded. "Larger. With windows."

"You're pulling my leg."

"Possibly." They split to let a folder-laden cart pass through. "I am enjoying it, though. It is nice to be in a department that I am qualified for yoi."

"You're overqualified."

Marco shot Barry a look he made questioning instead of suspicious at the last possible instant. "What makes you say that?"

"I dunno, man." Barry made a loose gesture. "Something about you, I guess. I know you're not allowed to talk about where you were last stationed, but, I mean…you were clearly high up the food chain, even if they stuck you at rock bottom here."

Marco flashed back to his time at the IPEC. He thought about his nice, spacious office with a breathtaking view of the North Blue. He thought about the cart that rolled through at precisely eight p.m. each night that served the best coffee in the entire complex. He sighed.

"Something like that yoi. Something like that."

* * *

This time, when Marco strode through the halls, he was not trying to command attention. Nor was he trying to get anything from his destination. It was late, but not unconscionably so, and Marco's mind was half-filled with his responsibilities for the next day. The other half was focused on his surroundings, noting cameras, windows, and marines. No one paid much attention to him; Marco was, despite his harassment of the base leader, near the bottom of the rankings.

He found his midway point: the men's restroom. Spread out between two large conference rooms, the bathroom had two exits, only one of which was covered by a camera. Marco spent a minute making sure he was truly alone. On his way out, he caught sight of himself in the mirror. Still unused to the glasses and black hair, he momentarily thought there was someone else with him. But no, it was his own reflection, as unfamiliar as it was. He shook his head. He would get used to it eventually.

Emerging back into the hallway via the unmonitored door, Marco picked up the pace. He had four minutes before his disappearance got suspicious. Now reaching hallways that were largely empty, he surreptitiously skirted the cameras' cones of visibility and nodded wordlessly at anyone he happened to make eye contact with.

The drop point was unremarkable, which was entirely the point. A rusting air vent in the back of a rarely used office only occupied when the stronghold reached capacity, which was far from the case at the moment. Marco slid the datadrive through the slats, turned, and retraced his steps. He would get no confirmation of pickup, no indication that the information was actually going anywhere. All he knew was that, each time he visited that vent, it was empty.

* * *

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	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 17**

_Ace_

Consciousness came slowly, little streaks of light through his mind until the sun rose and he could open his eyes. The room was dark. His shoulders ached—no, his whole body ached. His thoughts sludged through his brain like magma, slow and burning. Where was he?

His mouth tasted like copper and muck. He worked his jaw for a few seconds and then spat. That little action took most of his energy and didn't even help the taste. Ace tried to free his hands—they were suspended above his head in chains—but couldn't. There was no strength in his limbs, and his wrists were circles of painful fire, chafed raw and coated in dried blood. He didn't have the energy to lift his head. He didn't have any energy at all.

The floor offered no answers. He was on his knees. Still clothed, but his jumpsuit was gone. Streaks of black decorated what skin he could see. After staring at those streaks in incomprehension for a minute, Ace realized they were probably blood. If he moved his shoulders a little, he could feel little shifts along the surface of his arms, as though dried blood was cracking and flaking off.

He blinked. The dark stone floor was cold, which was strange, because Ace was still burning. With an effort of will, Ace lifted his head. The only light came from outside the cell, because this was a cell, there were the bars, creating distinct shadows that stopped just before they reached Ace's knees. He couldn't hear anyone. He couldn't see anyone.

Ace let his head fall and closed his eyes. The black welcomed him, tried to pull him under, but he resisted.

Where was he, and how had he gotten here? What was the last thing he remembered?

The mission with Marco, obviously. The…the route, through the Grand Line—they had—they were going through it. Ace had been—he'd been piloting, with Marco calling out warnings from the common room with some weird projections he'd programmed into the holotable. Things had been going fine—the Grand Line hadn't been nearly as difficult as Ace had expected—but then…something…something went wrong.

There was…it…

Ace could remember the seconds after. Yelling, struggling to control the ship, blaring warnings about hull integrity and flashing lights. A flashing light outside the ship. Then…

An explosion. Another one. _Mines_. There had been mines in the Grand Line. But that still left a lot unaccounted for. There was a massive blank space in his memory. Ace searched harder.

The ship had been torn apart in the second explosion. Ace had been knocked unconscious by the blast, but his jumpsuit had protected him. He remembered waking up, spinning, in space. The explosion had launched him out of the Grand Line, towards Farrow.

Had he landed on—

No, no, there was…the moon. He'd landed on the moon. Bovekk, probably, because he…he remembered fire.

Ace shuddered. The fire—it was in him. He could feel it.

"Are you finally awake?"

Ace didn't react to the voice. He didn't have the energy. The speaker continued anyway.

"Well, I know you are—cameras picked up you moving around. There's no pretending here."

Ace didn't bother to hide his scoff.

"Oh?"

"The only one pretending here is you," Ace said through a parched throat. "I'm the one in chains."

"So you do talk."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The man didn't respond. When Ace forced his eyes open and looked up, no one was there. Had he imagined the whole thing? He wasn't even sure if he'd said that last question out loud. Everything was blurry, indistinct.

He let his head drop. The darkness surged and receded, but the fire never faded. He was sweating, he knew that, but there was nothing he could do to cool himself down. Ace tried to find refuge in his own mind, but sleep eluded him. He hovered in a state of semi-consciousness. In a brief moment of sanity, he recognized that he was severely dehydrated. After that, everything turned hazy.

The next time Ace was aware, he wasn't alone. Someone was tipping his chin up, and his mouth was blissfully full of water. Ace swallowed greedily, hoping in some part of his mind that this water would drench the fire within.

It didn't, and the water was taken away all too soon, alongside the hand holding up Ace's head.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," a familiar voice said. Ace, gasping a little, stared at a pair of black boots. "Nearly lost you."

"What…a damn shame," Ace managed. His hair hung over his eyes, full of sweat and oil.

"Do you know where you are?"

Ace closed his eyes. "Who are you?"

"I asked first."

Ace didn't respond. He wasn't saying anything until he knew where he was and who had him. If it was the UBMC, he wasn't saying a damned thing. He wouldn't risk his identity being known. The other man sighed.

"Listen. I'm not with the UBMC."

"Prove it," Ace said without moving.

"How the hell am I supposed to prove it? Just trust me."

"I don't trust that easy."

"I hadn't noticed. Let me ask again: do you know where you are?"

He was still so thirsty. "Water."

"You're really in no position to bargain."

Ace waited. After a few seconds, the man grumbled something, and the water was back. Ace kept his eyes closed in a small act of defiance until the man took the water bottle away.

Only to suddenly throw the rest of the water it contained in his face. Ace's eyes shot open and he spluttered, water dripping off his eyelashes and sliding over his skin.

"The hell was that for?" Ace spluttered, now fully awake. The man, whose face and body were completely hidden by a black and blue jumpsuit, merely inclined his head. After a second, Ace realized that the water wasn't sticking around. Incredulous, he looked up at his right arm, which was glistening with water—_evaporating_ water. Steam curled from his skin in gentle wisps. Within a minute, he was dry again. Even the bloody remnants had dried and shriveled off.

"What the _fuck_," Ace said.

The man crouched down in front of him. "See, that's what I would like to know. We find you on a moon after repeated reports of unusual energy spikes, and you proceed to attack the rescue team. And the team that tries to extract the rescue team. _And_ the team we sent to finally put you down."

Ace curled his hands into fists even though it made the manacles dig into the tendons on the insides of his wrists. "You tried to kill me?"

"It was the proper response when you wouldn't calm down," the man replied. "And the key point is _tried_. You are remarkably difficult to kill."

Ace scowled. "I don't remember any of that."

"I can assure you that I am not making any of it up. I was on the team that finally subdued you."

"Why not just kill me?"

The man tipped his head. Ace couldn't see any hint of his expression, but the man's tone came out even. "Three reasons: one, you ran out of energy before you could do any damage to my team; two, we found your IPSC identification card in your jumpsuit, Ace D. Portgas, and everything your history entails does not match what we have observed. Three, well…my suit is reading the current temperature of this room as just under 100 degrees Celsius."

Ace stared. The man continued, heedless of Ace's growing incomprehension.

"There is only one conclusion to make from your earlier behavior, which is a far cry from the way you are acting now—and your current physical state. You, my friend, have eaten a Devil Fruit, and that is something very rare indeed."

"You're insane," Ace said. "Devil Fruits are a myth. A fairy tale."

The man stood, producing a key from one of the pockets in his jumpsuit. Ace craned his head back to watch him insert the key into the lock between the manacles around Ace's wrists. "What are you doing?"

"Proving a theory. If I'm right, you'll know."

"The hell is that supposed to…mean…"

Ace trailed off the second the manacles opened, dropping his wrists down to his lap. The heat inside him surged and a hunger that wasn't his swept through Ace with such viciousness that Ace gasped.

"What…the _fuck_," he bit out between clenched teeth. The weakness was gone but something else's strength was trying to swallow him whole. Ace battled against it with all he had, but it was a losing fight. "Put them back on," he gasped.

The man hesitated.

"_Now_!" Ace shouted. The fire surged, dancing across his—no, it _was_ his skin, it wasn't burning him, _he_ was burning, _he_ was the fire, and the fire—the fire wanted—he wanted—to _burn_—

Something yanked his arms up. The manacles snapped back into place and Ace slumped down, the other presence receding into the depths of his mind. His limbs trembled, and he held down a wave of nausea

"Believe me now?" the man asked.

Ace couldn't even lift his bowed head. He closed his eyes. After several seconds spent getting a grip on his breathing, Ace finally figured out how to speak again.

"Yeah." There was no arguing against the fire he'd seen flickering along his limbs. Ace swallowed, drew in a shaky breath, and looked up. "How do I get rid of it?"

The man didn't move. Then he laughed, a little incredulously. "You don't."

"The hell I can't."

The man raised his hands. "I am not saying it's a matter of will. In all recorded cases of Devil Fruit possessions, the person afflicted has never been able to remove the devil or its effects, except by death." Ace stiffened. The man's helmet hid any expression, but Ace got the impression he was being peered at. "You don't want to die, do you?"

Ace searched for any sign of emotion, of expression, but the man's opaque helmet gave away nothing. Ace let his head fall; his neck and shoulders burned from the effort of keeping his head up.

His whole body burned. He was hot, always, a cool outer skin melting from the heat beneath. He hadn't noticed, at first, with the chains and the exhaustion and the pain, but there was—there was something else, in his head, something waiting. It had come out in that brief moment when the man released the cuffs but now—now it was constant, straining against the seal it couldn't break. Emotions and desires that weren't his own swirled around in Ace's head.

"Well?" the man prodded.

Ace didn't give an answer. He didn't have one. After a minute of stifling silence, the man finally left.

* * *

The next time the man came around, he brought water. Lots and lots of water. Ace drank until his thirst was finally satisfied. The second he was done, he asked the question that had been echoing in his mind for hours.

"Where's Marco?"

The man paused in the process of screwing the caps back on his thermoses. "Who?"

"Marco," Ace repeated. "He was my crewmate. Where is he?"

The man tilted his head. "I'm afraid that you are the only person we encountered. We were not exactly sending out search parties. If not for your actions on Bovekk, we would not even have found you."

Ace gritted his teeth. "Can you look into it? I need to know if he's alive."

"And why would I do that?"

Ace strained against the chains, incensed by the man's bland tone. "Cut the shit. He's my friend, you asshole."

The man lifted his hands. "Calm down."

"No," Ace growled. "You look and you tell me what you find or I burn this whole place down."

"Listen to yourself!" the man snapped. "Do you even hear what you're saying?"

"I don't care. I need to know about Marco."

"And do you always threaten to murder people who don't immediately give you what you want?"

Ace hesitated, and then felt something warm trickling down his arms. He glanced up. Fresh blood was flowing from his wrists, where his straining had made the chains break the tentative scabbing there. He hadn't even felt it.

A flash of fear grounded him. Ace forced himself to relax, to take a deep breath and center himself. Only then did he look back at the man. "Please," he said. "Please, I—he's my friend. It was my job to keep him safe."

After a silent contest of wills, the man sighed. "All right, I'll look into it. But don't get your hopes up."

Ace, out of energy, could only twist his lips into a bitter smile.

* * *

"What does it feel like?"

Ace lifted his head. The man was sitting across from him. He gestured at Ace's sweat- and blood-soaked skin, his hand just missing the three thermoses he'd brought in.

"You're pumping out heat like a furnace. Your body is clearly still trying to cool itself down. Do you feel hot?"

Ace bared his teeth. "Of course it's hot. It's in my _blood_."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be insensitive."

Ace let his head fall. His shoulders should've been in agony, his arms too, from being suspended, but they weren't. His whole body wasn't…wasn't right. The muscle wasn't muscle, the bone wasn't bone, the skin…wasn't skin. It was all—it was all shifting. Melting. Reforming. If it was supposed to hurt, Ace couldn't feel it.

"Of course you didn't," Ace muttered. "Hate ta…offend the guy chained to your prison wall."

"It's necessary."

Ace spat. "Like I care."

He heard the folding of fabric. "I still would like to know your current mental state, Mr. Portgas."

Ace snorted. "Mr. Portgas?" he repeated. "You're really trying to get on my good side. I don't even know your name."

"I am trying to get a read on you. Would you prefer to be called Ace?"

Something about the way the man said his name tickled Ace's memory. The fire reacted, swirling sharper for just a second. Ace gritted his teeth. "No. Just Portgas. None of that 'mister' bullshit."

"As you say, Portgas. Have you thought about your condition?"

Ace wanted to laugh. Would've, if he'd had the energy. "If by 'condition' you mean uncontrollable, homicidal devil slowly taking over my body and mind that will eventually kill me, then yeah, I've thought about it."

"Kill you?" Ace glanced up in response to the genuine confusion in the man's voice. "There is nothing predetermined about possessing a Devil Fruit. It will not, by itself, kill you. From what I understand, the devil inside very much wants to keep you alive. You are a vessel for its powers, not a casket."

"Is that supposed to help?"

"It's all a matter of perspective, Mi—ah, Portgas. Devil Fruits can be controlled. They have been in the past. From what I understand, it is a matter of will. Of grounding yourself. Death is not the only answer to this question."

Ace forced himself to take a slow breath. "I never said that it was."

"Then I respect your tenacity. I must be going now, but—"

Ace glanced up. "But?"

The man shook his head. "Never mind." He gathered up the thermoses. "Good day."

Ace watched him leave, tracking him with his eyes. "It's always a good day 'round here," he muttered, bitterness that was probably his own sweeping through him.

If Luffy could see him now.

* * *

_**Please review.**_


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 18**

_Marco_

"Really," Marco said, leaning across the table. His elbow rested only an inch from the edge of his food tray. Behind him, a different table of marines erupted in laughter. One of them leaned back too far and knocked into Marco.

"Sorry," the marine offered. Marco waved her off.

"These tables are too close," Barry said, leaning forward to avoid a collision as someone squeezed between the two cafeteria tables. His marine cap, his proudest possession—_"it's vintage"_—tilted on his head, and he carefully repositioned it. "I swear they have other places available, but they cram us all in here anyway."

"Remember," Joanne said, raising her fork with a poorly hidden grin pulling at the corners of her mouth, "Cafeteria B is being remodeled, and once it finishes, we will be able to dine in _absolute luxury_."

Marco shook his head. "You keep saying it was open before I got here, but I've never seen any evidence of that yoi."

Barry swallowed a bite of his eggs. "If we consult the seismic activity charts, we can see that the construction didn't actually begin until—"

"Oh stop, that's a waste of department resources," Joanne said, bumping his shoulder.

"No more than that endless construction project."

Marco watched them with a quiet smile, though he had stopped paying attention. Over Barry's left shoulder, Vice Admiral Garp was crossing the cafeteria, a thunderous look on his face. In his left hand, he was all but crushing a sheaf of papers. One of them was stamped _confidential_.

He shouldered through the doors, undoubtedly on his way to the head vice-admiral's office. Their shouting matches were legendary. Supposedly, the two had gotten along fine, but after the UBMC's assault on the main IPEC facility, Garp had buried their amicable past in favor of pure fury. Rumor was, the fleet had stuck him here so his hell-raising wouldn't be visible to any prying eyes. The UBMC didn't like to show signs of instability. Marco had been passing along everything he knew about that whole situation, but he had no idea how useful that information could actually be.

He _had_ managed to procure up-to-date blueprints of the stronghold for his last handoff, though. He was sure the Revolutionaries had appreciated that.

"Marco?"

"Sorry, say that again?" Marco said.

Barry raised an eyebrow. "I was just saying that, to get us back on topic, yes, really, the Bovekk readings have gone back to average levels. What had you so distracted?"

"Vice Admiral Garp just walked by."

Both Barry and Joanne made quiet _oh_ noises. Barry leaned forward. "Was he on his way to the…?"

Marco nodded. Barry groaned. His fork clattered back onto his tray as he picked up his cap and ran a frustrated hand through his hair before resettling his headgear.

"Shit."

"What's the matter?" Joanne asked.

"I was supposed to go with Ao to meet with him to go over our budget for next month in—" he checked his watch—"twenty minutes."

"I don't think that's going to happen," Marco said.

"Yeah. I gotta go find Ao. I doubt he'll check his email before we're supposed to head over. 'Scuse me."

He stood, took his tray, and navigated his way through the winding maze of tables and bodies. Marco took the brief silence after his departure to polish off his breakfast. He then cleared his throat to get Joanne's attention. The redhead, snapped out of her own musings, straightened in her seat.

"What's up?"

"What was the deal with Bovekk?" Marco asked. "First Barry comes to me with the news that its energy levels are unprecedented, and not even a week later, you're telling me it's all calmed down."

Joanne nodded, her shoulders settling with her thoughts. "Yes. Trust me, I'm as confused as you are. Bovekk has one of the most active magma layers of any celestial body in this solar system, and energy on that scale doesn't just disappear."

"Right, conservation."

"Exactly. But there were no extreme geyser events, eruptions, or quakes that would have bled off the energy we were seeing within two days. I mean, c'mon, these are moons…"

"Joanne?"

She frowned. "Sorry, Naomi is staring this way again. Vulture." Shaking her head, Joanne picked up where she'd left off. "Energy on that scale can't vanish, but it's not showing up on any of our scanners anymore."

"A glitch?"

Joanne bit her lip. "That's a touchy subject right now. We paid millions of beri for our equipment. A lot of it isn't even three years out of date. All our techs assure us it's functioning right. Can you imagine if the brass got wind that our scanners and whatnot were malfunctioning? We'd be drawn and quartered."

"Not literally yoi," Marco said, trying to dispel some of Joanne's serious tone. Unfortunately, she wasn't having any of it.

"All but literally. Our budget, our reputation, our input in operational missions—all of it would be slashed. And then we'd be monitored like children until the higher brass reassured themselves that we weren't going to waste their money again."

Marco kept his face covered in a mask of professional concern. Inside, though, the final piece of his latest saboteur puzzle had just fallen into place. Barry was right: Marco _was_ good at departmental politics. Whether the tectonics department's equipment was really malfunctioning or not was moot; Marco was going to cripple them regardless. A rumor here, an email there, a few offhand comments…With Garp already stirring up everyone's anxieties, it wouldn't even be difficult. He would work through and weaken this stronghold's mission prep one department at a time, wasting every ounce of UBMC resources that he could.

"I'm sure it won't come to that," he finally said.

Joanne sighed. "Yeah, I hope so. Anyway, I need to get back to my team. See you around."

"See you."

Now alone at a brief stretch of table, Marco stared at his empty tray. They were good people, but he wasn't here to help them. If they truly cared about their morals, they should've been raging alongside Garp, not quietly getting out of his way.

* * *

That night, the halls were more crowded than normal. Marco slipped into his usual bathroom. There was one guy washing his hands. There was a brief moment of eye contact, a quick nod of mutual acknowledgment, and then the man dried his hands and left. Marco chewed his lip. To go or not? While the risk hadn't changed, he didn't like being seen this early into things.

He had to give a report in front of some of the brass in a few days, though. He would be too busy maintaining his cover the next few nights to send anything back, and Garp's rising fury was too important to leave unknown. Furthermore, the Revolutionaries needed to know that Cysk's interest in Bovekk had cooled.

Marco sighed. His reflection in the mirror met his gaze, the bags under his eyes exacerbated by the sickly lighting.

A flicker of blue and gold fire lived and died behind his irises. Memories of space and freedom surfaced and sank in the same instant. Marco swallowed, checked his right pocket to ensure he did, in fact, have the drive, and then turned for the exit.

He had a job to do.

The first two hallways passed without incident. No cameras caught so much as a whisper of his shadow; all those late-night jaunts through the Moby Dick's secured decks (usually at Thatch's insistence) were paying off.

Thatch's excuses had always been terrible, too. A lost item, something Marco "had to see"; what had he been trying to do? Or had Thatch taken it upon himself to give Marco some training that the IPEC never would? Not that speculation would get him anywhere now.

"Oop!"

In the middle of drawing breath, Marco got what little he'd earned knocked out of him. His backside hit the floor, the jolt carrying halfway up his spine. He winced and looked across the sudden moat of papers to see Naomi massaging her back with a grimace. She caught his eye.

"Sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going."

Marco didn't believe her for a second. Her prim glasses caught the light, but they couldn't hide the gleam in her eyes. She had been suspicious of him since catching him on his first ever run to the vent, and his fumbling excuse had barely been enough to get her to leave him alone. Sure enough, when he patted his pocket, the drive was gone.

"No worries," Marco said. "Here, let me help you yoi."

"Oh, no, it's fine, I've got it."

She set to collecting her papers. Marco insisted on helping, of course, but all the while, he eyed Naomi's pristine uniform. Which pocket would she stuff it in?

Too soon, Naomi was standing up again. She favored Marco with a thin smile. "Thanks. Be seeing you, Mr. Marco."

Marco just nodded and stepped aside to let her pass. He watched her through narrowed eyes until she rounded the far corner and disappeared from sight. Vulture indeed.

He smoothed out the vest resting over his white t-shirt and resumed his route. He passed several other people on his way, but none of them tried any underhanded tricks like Naomi. Only one of them even bothered with a verbal greeting, which Marco reciprocated with exactly the same amount of enthusiasm.

The vent was the same as it always was, rusting and full of dust. Whatever they did to pick up his drives, they always somehow managed to replace the dust his handoff disturbed.

Marco reached into his vest's inner pocket and removed his actual drive. The one Naomi had lifted only contained Marco's draft for his presentation on Ava's icy surface. Marco went to place the drive, only to freeze. There was a paper there, about the length of his index finger.

A chill raced along his shoulders. Was he discovered?

He worked his fingers through the bent and rusting slats. It took a few harrowing seconds, but he got his fingers around the paper. He read it with his heartbeat thundering in his ears, but it held no warning, no sign of impending doom. It had only three words on it, but those three words carried enough force to tip Marco back off his heels. He sat hard on the floor.

_Your crewmate lives._

* * *

_**Please review.**_


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 19**

_Ace_

"Your friend is alive."

Ace yanked his head up. He'd been dozing, kind of, and hadn't heard the man walk up to the cell bars. "What?"

"Your friend. Marco."

Sparks flew under Ace's skin. He was wide awake. "Where is he?"

The man stood outside the cell. "His situation is delicate. I'm afraid I cannot tell you more details."

The sparks turned hot. "What?"

"Calm down, Portgas. Do not let the devil control you again."

That alone was enough to send ice through Ace's veins. How was he supposed to know when his anger was his, and his alone?

The man left, and Ace bowed his head. He stared at the stone in front of his knees, eyes wide, mind spinning. Marco was alive. Marco was _alive_. Ace hadn't failed. He hadn't—

He swallowed around the lump in his throat. His vision turned cloudy from the evaporating tears unable to fall from his eyes.

* * *

The next time Ace woke up, his hands weren't above his head. Muddled by sleep, Ace blinked a few times until he looked down at his lap, where his hands rested against his legs. The manacles were still there—two separated cuffs around his wrists, no chain connecting them—but they weren't attached to anything. The weakness they created remained.

Ace experimented for a few minutes with trying to get the cuffs off, but they were rock-solid, and he had nothing he could use to pick the lock. Besides, he suspected that what would happen if he did get them off would not be pleasant.

Footsteps caught his attention and he glanced up to see the familiar jumpsuit of his most frequent, and only, visitor.

"Why?" Ace asked, holding up his wrists.

Jumpsuit man stayed outside of the cell once more. "You have demonstrated a desire to avoid any violent or unreasonable behavior. The chains were no longer necessary to keep you contained. I will be keeping the cuffs on, though."

"Of course," Ace muttered. "What even are they?"

"Kairoseki. Think of it as sea stone. It carries the sea inside of it, and Devil Fruits have a strange weakness to it. It's not as much of an issue in space, I suppose, but I've found that having a supply on hand is not a mistake."

Ace clinked the cuffs together. His wrists were still raw, but the oozing blood had stopped. He was probably going to scar.

Ace slowly climbed to his feet, sore and aching muscles protesting every step. At least his wounds from the explosion had healed, though he had no idea how. Standing, he was almost the same height as the other man. He slowly shuffled up to the bars. When he reached them, he pressed his forehead against them, and then as much of his body as he could. His body was so _heavy_. Once he had some energy back, Ace looked into the man's faceless, opaque helmet. "Who _are_ you?"

The man tipped his head. Ace got the distinct impression that he was smiling. "You may call me the Assistant."

"The hell kind of name is that?" Ace asked, but the Assistant didn't reply. He was checking his wrist monitor, and he abruptly turned on his heel and left. "Hey. Hey!"

He didn't turn. Ace strained his ears and heard the quiet sound of a door opening and closing. With a sigh, he slouched fully against the bars, turned, and slid down until he was sitting with his back to the hallway.

As tight-lipped as the Assistant was when it came to Ace's location, Ace had a few guesses. He knew that he'd landed on Bovekk and come into contact with the Devil Fruit then. Anything after that was a blur, but the Assistant had mentioned his operation picking up unusual activity from Bovekk. That meant there was a monitoring station close enough to notice—one close enough to _be_ noticed if anyone else took a look. No one on Oceana gave a shit about a lava-covered moon, and most of the IPEC monitoring stations were pointed at far more interesting space rocks. Not that the IPEC would care enough to send three separate teams out to the moon just to deal with some odd readings.

The only planet close to Bovekk was the one it orbited: Farrow. A barren wasteland good only for automated mining and with so little human life on it that even the UBMC didn't consider actually claiming it to be worth the paperwork. Farrow's storms, as Marco had pointed out, completely obscured planet-side activity from space-based scans. It was the perfect hideaway if you could build a sturdy enough base. And the only organization that really needed to keep to the shadows in this day and age was the Revolutionary Army.

Ace tipped his head back and rested it against the bar running straight up his back. They'd probably picked him up on Bovekk because too many more wild fluctuations _would_ attract the attention of the IPEC, or worse, the UBMC. Ace was most likely in their base on Farrow, or one of their bases, because he was willing to bet they had several. Or, if not that, a local moon. Farrow had three, and Eos and Ios, while lacking any real atmosphere, could definitely hold a base, even if it would be cramped.

There were, he supposed, worse places to end up. A UBMC prison, for one. An execution platform, for another. He would've preferred an IPEC base, or ship, or anything that would allow him to move, but the devil inside of him meant that anything would be dangerous. It meant that _he_ would be dangerous to anything that found him. He was lucky, in a way, to have been found by the Revolutionaries. They had the supplies and resources needed to keep him contained. The question was how long they were planning on doing it for. Surely even they wouldn't hold him indefinitely. Either he died or joined them. Even if the Assistant hadn't said anything like that, that was how organizations like this worked.

Ace closed his eyes.

"Fuck."

* * *

Ace pressed his forehead into the stone floor. The fire roared, coiled under his skin, a devil wanting out. Ace curled his hands into fists and slammed his right hand against the floor. The shock of pain made the fire flinch back, just for a second.

"You won't break me," Ace growled. "You. _Won't_."

This was hell, but there was much worse waiting for him if he gave in. And he would _not_ give in. The fire whipped and whirled in his muscles, his bones, his blood, but it didn't get out. Ace wouldn't let it. The fire was _his_, now, not the devil's. Never again the devil's.

As though sensing his thoughts, the fire raged. Concentration breaking, Ace felt his body breaking apart into flames. He stretched out a hand, fear consuming the focus, until the Assistant slapped the Kairoseki cuff back on his wrist.

The fire faded and Ace collapsed, limp, onto his stomach. His breath came out harsh and labored. He closed his eyes and tried to catch his breath.

"I think that went well," the Assistant said

Ace, still breathless, turned his head just enough to glare in the general direction of the Assistant's face. "Fuck you."

After a week of practice—in which they had begun experimenting with removing just one cuff—Ace was finally moving up to removing both cuffs. They remained in the cell, and the Assistant was ready and waiting to restrain Ace the second it appeared that he was losing control.

"You lasted longer this time," the Assistant said. "Surely you feel good about that."

Ace pushed himself into a kneeling position. He leaned back to sit on his heels, tipping his head back and letting gravity pull everything down. "I'll feel good when I can do it as long as I want."

"Baby steps, Portgas."

Ace brought his head back to neutral. "Screw that. Unlock me again."

"Again? You just—"

"I can handle it." Ace lifted his right arm. With just one manacle, he could feel the devil, could hear it whisper, but he could also get used to fighting it constantly. "Do it."

The Assistant hesitated. But, when Ace didn't move, he sighed and slid the key into the lock.

* * *

Ace roared. It was all he could do. Shouting, yelling, screaming in defiance against the devil trying to swallow him whole.

His voice cut out and he folded, knees and elbows against the ground, sweat dripping to the stone floor, shadows of the prison bars splitting his vision in four. It would be…so easy…to burn. To light the shadows. To erase them. To paint everything in fire and leave nothing behind.

Someone said a name. His name. Ace pressed his nails into his palms.

"I've got this," he bit out.

He did. He would. He just. He just had to remember. His anchor.

"Luffy," Ace hissed. The thought alone of his kid brother finding out that Ace died in space, died to the marines, died with regrets—that alone was enough to keep him steady. He laid a hand flat on the floor, stone glowing from the heat of his palm. He dug his nails into that stone as the fire tried to burn it all away. He squeezed his eyes shut. "You can't erase me. You won't."

Pain mixed with fire mixed with fury, and in that instant Ace understood.

It wasn't about erasure. It wasn't about him at all. The fire was furious and the devil was fury; it roared and howled against the cold void that had imprisoned it for so long. Ace shuddered, his own mind, his very sense of self, quivering under the onslaught of demonic rage.

But anger wasn't new to him. Rage wasn't new to him. Hell, he'd lived half his life with two lifetime's worth of fury simmering under his skin, and this fire might hurt worse physically, but it was a damned shadow to the mental shitshow that had been Ace's brain for almost a decade. Revenge for a crime he didn't commit but a need to see it through anyway, a burning _need_ to find proof of some kind, of any kind, that he was human and wanted and loved.

So this devil, for all its howling fury, was nothing more than that. And Ace? Ace had learned. He had grown.

"You're mad," he whispered, closing his eyes and pressing his forehead to the floor. "I get that. God knows I'm angry too."

The fire flickered along his skin.

"But guess what? There's more to any of this than fury."

A rejection, violent, that wracked him to his core.

"Ace," the Assistant said.

"I'm handling it," Ace snapped. "I just need to talk to it."

"To the devil? Ace—"

It burned like a whip across his heart and he couldn't explain why but the rage rose anew. "Don't _call_ me that!"

The Assistant scrambled back as a wall of flames pressed him up against the bars. The Assistant's hand blurred, and then there was a staff there. Ace kept his hand up. The devil, maybe, had felt that too, because the fire cooled a second later.

"Wait," Ace said. "Please."

"You have ten seconds."

"Please."

The fire on the floor, lacking anything to burn, finally died. The Assistant lowered his staff so that the butt end rested on the floor. "Fine."

Ace, panting, closed his eyes, turning his attention inward once more. "C'mon. C'mon, you piece of shit space fruit. You wanna burn shit? So do I. Everything should burn."

Agreement, so fast and violent that Ace gasped. Fire surged but Ace held it back, crackling, in his bones.

"Not everything. That's you. That's—that's what you want. But I have things. People. I—there are things I value. Things I need. People I can't live without. People I love." He could feel the stone pressing against his skin again, a sensation he hadn't even realized he'd been missing. "I can't lose them. I—if we're stuck with each other. If there's really—if there's really no way out—because I can't die, not yet, I won't—then we work together. We fight together.

"And maybe—maybe you can't burn everything. But I'll use you. You can still burn, to protect those people, those things."

Denial. Dismissal. Rage. Ace pressed his head harder into the ground. His skull ached from the war being waged inside it.

"Stop, stop," Ace growled. He wasn't even sure what he was saying anymore, but some of it was getting through, so he kept going. "Stop. It's—listen. I die. What then? You get stuck on some backwater planet or moon or whatever and wait for thousands of years until the next unlucky bastard finds you. And then they burn out, because I can bet I'm the first guy in a while to not bite the bullet immediately. So this is as good as it gets."

Another wave of anger.

Ace chuckled. "That all you got? I've been angry all my life. You're nothing new to me. I'm not going anywhere. And it's about damn time you understood that."

No response. Nothing. Ace opened his eyes. Lifted his head. No manacles on his wrists, but his body—it was _his_.

"Portgas?"

Ace swallowed. He pressed his palms into the floor and pushed himself up.

"I need a verbal response."

He let his shoulders drop. "I'm here," he said, hardly believing it himself. "I'm—I'm okay."

With one hand braced against the floor, Ace got a foot under himself and slowly got to his feet. Standing straight, looking at the Assistant and seeing his own warped reflection in the mask, Ace wanted to laugh. He put a hand over his eyes and then dragged it down his face. Giddiness urged his lips into an exhausted smile.

"I look like shit."

The Assistant extended an arm as though to touch but never completed the gesture. His hand dropped back down to his side. "I cannot argue with that. How do you feel?"

Ace looked down at himself. Everything…everything felt normal. But he didn't know if his normal had shifted. "I…fine. Good."

"And the fire?"

Ace lifted his palm. When he flexed his fingers, they felt like they always had. He could see the tendons in his wrists shifting. He reached for the fire, and the fire leapt at his call.

His hand burst into flame. Ace jumped, flinched, cursed all in one instant and then, when the panic slipped, he realized it didn't hurt. And his hand wasn't on fire—it _was _fire. Ace stared at the flames, hypnotized. The devil stirred, expecting more, but Ace cut it off. The fire went out. Ace looked up at the Assistant and grinned.

"Mine."

* * *

_**Please review.**_


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 20**

_Ace_

Ace was meditating, his shackles removed, in his cell. Over the last four days, he and the devil had worked out a relationship, leaving Ace firmly in control. The only dangerous time came at night, when nightmares and triggering dreams could make his emotions spiral out of control. The Assistant had given him a Kairoseki ring and bracelet. Ace wore the ring at night to keep everything in check. The bracelet was a backup. During the day, he kept both in a special blue pouch strapped around the left leg of his shorts, below the empty gun holster.

It was nice, Ace mused, to have his things back. Most of them, anyway. Everything had been so hectic in the beginning that his missing knife and gun hadn't registered. But now that the Assistant had returned the sheath and holster, Ace was feeling their absences keenly.

His clothes were washed and mended. Those that weren't burned beyond repair, anyway. Figuring out his powers—how to set himself on fire, how to _be_ fire, without destroying everything he was wearing—was taking serious practice.

Letting out a breath, Ace held up his right wrist, which had a sweatband on it. The Assistant had given him a small pile of them, since they were apparently the only clothing item around this base that was both cheap and disposable. Ace bit his lip, clenched his hand into a fist, and ignited. His hand burned brightly, the flames throwing light all over the cell before Ace put them out.

The sweatband was still there. Half of it. Ace peeled off the melted remnants with a grimace, tossed it onto the pile of other rejects, and slid a new one onto his wrist. Where did the devil draw the line?

"Let's try this," Ace muttered, staring intently at his new sweatband. "We don't burn what belongs to me, yeah?"

His eyes pulsed in response to the surge of light when his hand ignited again. When the flames went out, the sweatband was there, whole and unburned. Ace grinned.

"You look pleased with yourself."

Ace jumped and cursed. "Stop sneaking up on me like that."

The Assistant leaned against the bars and crossed his arms. There had to be a smirk under that black mask of his. "Not my fault you get too focused on your work to notice me."

Ace stretched out one of the sweatbands and launched it at the Assistant, who didn't even bother moving aside. The fuzzy band smacked against his facemask and fell to the floor.

"Nice shot."

"Thanks." Ace shifted into a more comfortable position to look up at his visitor. "What brings you down here today, Assistant? Can't say I've accomplished much since we last chatted."

"It's only been a day." The Assistant pushed off the bars and crouched down. "And two weeks since you got that devil of yours under control. Still having dreams?"

Ace flicked another sweatband. "Don't worry about it. I'm fine. More importantly, when are you giving me the tour of this place? I'm too big for this cell."

"Your paperwork is still getting worked through, and you haven't even had your interviews yet."

"Oh, I'm great at interviews."

"I'm sure. I am supposed to check up on you often, you know. I do need you to answer my questions."

Ace groaned and lay back. The ceiling stone didn't have to answer any questions like these. "Seriously, the dreams are fine."

"'Fine' doesn't tell me whether you're still getting them or, if you are, how bad they are. I need more details than you're giving, Portgas."

Ace closed his eyes. Those dreams of fire hadn't gone away after finding the devil fruit. If anything, they'd only gotten more intense as the devil worked its way through Ace's subconscious, finding any reasons it could to burn. All the scenarios were getting more personal, more tailored, more difficult to ignore.

"You worry too much. I'm having them less and less often. Like I said, it's fine."

"Portgas. I know you're lying."

"Oh?" Ace braced one elbow against the floor. "What makes you so confident? I'm telling the truth. Tell me how I'm doing it wrong."

"Where to start," the Assistant mused.

"You're stalling."

"Bold of you to—"

_Beep._

The Assistant raised his wrist.

"Your comm is blinking," Ace pointed out helpfully.

"Thanks. Never would've noticed." The Assistant stood and walked a few steps away. "Give me a second."

Ace lay back while the Assistant chatted. He couldn't hear any of the conversation, of course, since the secretive bastard had turned off his external speakers.

In the weeks since he'd stopped being a raging human flamethrower, Ace's only choices for passing the time had been eating, sleeping, exercising, or practicing his powers. He was bored out of his mind, and he'd been making that as clear as he could every time the Assistant passed by. But no, he didn't get anything else. Just questions about his dreams and mental state. He hadn't even gotten more news about Marco, since that "delicate situation" or whatever was apparently ongoing.

The first tremor was so slight that Ace dismissed it. The second, easily ten times as strong, knocked dust from the ceiling and rattled the shackles still stuck into the wall. Ace shot up, staggered, but kept his feet. The Assistant had braced himself against the far wall, wrist held up to his face, shoulders hunched with urgency.

"What's going on?" Ace asked, wrapping his hands around the bars.

"Enemy attack," the Assistant said, pushing off the wall. He stumbled to Ace's cell, fumbling with a key. Ace released the cell bars before the sea stone in them drained all his strength and stepped back as the Assistant opened the door. "We have to get to the armory."

"What?"

"I've been ordered to escort you to an escape ship." He didn't sound happy about it.

"Why am I so important?" Ace asked while he ducked out of the cell. "I'm just a prisoner."

"Your ISPC experience, devil fruit, and lineage apparently make you a rather important asset. Trust me, I just had this conversation."

Ace stopped cold. "Lineage?"

"I didn't ask. Come on, we have to go."

The Assistant grabbed and tugged Ace down the hallway. Ace shook himself and picked up the pace.

"Who's attacking?"

"UBMC." The Assistant yanked open the door and ushered Ace through. These hallways were narrow and unpainted, the exposed stone lined with bare bulbs, pipes, and wires. "Take a right, then the next left. We'll be using the stairs to go down."

"How'd they find you?"

"There's only one possible explanation," the Assistant said grimly. "They must've cracked our encryption, whether by force or by espionage. They were just waiting for the right time to exploit it. They already targeted IPEC. We were overdue." They skidded around a corner. "To do it so easily, though—it's disconcerting."

The base shook again, throwing Ace off his feet. The Assistant caught him.

"It's more than that," Ace grunted.

When they reached the stairwell, the Assistant slammed the door open. It banged against the inside wall. The echo reverberated up and down the concrete stairs. Ace winced.

"Down there!"

"Hurry!"

Ace followed the Assistant down, trying not to pay attention to the voices and pounding footsteps coming from overhead. All the cell exercise in the world couldn't make up for stamina training, and his lungs burned. Still, he kept going, every impact of his boots on the stairs sending shocks all the way to his hips. The railing was cold under his palm, the walls even more so when his shoulder knocked into them on the turns.

The Assistant stopped on the B4 landing and ushered Ace through the door.

Ace stopped immediately, eyes crossing to focus on the gun in his face.

"What are you doing?" the Assistant snapped, but it was directed at the revolutionary holding the gun, not Ace. The man jumped and snatched the gun away from Ace's face.

"Oh, s-sir! Sorry!"

"Where's the rest of your squad?"

"Ambushed in our quarters. I was the only one to escape. They're swarming in from the top, and with this leg I had to take the elevator down. Was walking this way when I heard you coming."

Ace eyed the guy's pajamas. He had a nasty burn wound on one thigh, and he was leaning hard against the wall to compensate. He was also clearly in his pajamas.

"The hostage play," the Assistant muttered. The man nodded. "Well, we're not good hostages, and we've got at least a full squad in pursuit. Can you make it to the armory?"

The man pursed his lips. "Frankly, sir, it's taking all I have to stay standing."

Ace catalogued the myriad of bruises and welts on the man's visible skin. The laser burn was just the most obvious injury. There were tens of others.

"I'll carry him," Ace said.

"Can you?"

Unable to see the Assistant's expression, Ace guessed that it was tinged with concern for both Ace and the man. Sure, Ace wasn't in the best of shape, but he hadn't been just sitting on his ass. And the devil knew better than to burn an ally.

"Yeah, I can." Ace slung the man's right arm over his shoulders. "Good?"

The man nodded. The Assistant unholstered his LG pistol and took point, keeping a careful eye for ambushes. There was no way to know for sure whether the UBMC strike teams had made it down this far or not.

"Be careful," the man said as they hobbled down the hallway. "They're using hardware. Real bullets."

Ace nearly stumbled on his next step. "Seriously? That crap's crazy expensive."

"But it pierces shields far better than any laser-based equipment," the Assistant growled. "Bastards." He glanced back at Ace and the man. "Just hang on. We're almost there."

Ace hoisted the man's arm a little higher, offering a quiet apology when the man groaned in pain.

"You're running hot," the man mumbled.

"Adrenaline and exercise'll do that," Ace said. "Stay with me, you hear?"

The man grunted.

"Hey. Verbal response."

"I'm here."

"Good."

The Assistant paused at the next corner. Ace stopped right behind him, leaning both himself and the man against the wall.

"I'm reading movement," the Assistant muttered. "At least ten."

"Let me guess," Ace said. "That's where we need to go."

"It's the armory entrance."

"Are they trying to break in?"

The Assistant's mask was as inscrutable as always. "I don't know, Portgas, why don't you ask them?"

"Why don't you go fu—"

The man went limp. Surprised at the sudden weight, Ace folded, barely catching himself in time to avoid crashing against the ground. His knees protested, but he unhooked the man's arm from around his neck and lowered him all the way down.

"Hey," Ace whispered, waving a hand in front of the man's face. The man moaned, his eyelids fluttering. The Assistant crouched next to him. "What's wrong with him?"

"The laser wound isn't enough. If he was brawling, it's possible he suffered an internal injury."

"Can we save him?"

The Assistant checked the man's pulse, then gently pressed down on a few different parts of his abdomen. Then he shook his head.

"You can feel it just below his floating rib on the left side. He isn't going to make it without immediate, professional medical attention."

Ace gritted his teeth. "Stay here."

"What are you planning?" The Assistant stood with Ace and grabbed his wrist. "Portgas, there are—"

"I know," Ace snapped. "I'll handle it. Watch him, watch my back."

The devil stirred, sensing Ace's intent. Heat rushed through his veins as the devil's excited fury bled into Ace's rage. Flames raced up Ace's arms, and the Assistant released him and stepped back.

"You'd better know what you're doing," he said. "And you'd better keep your head."

Ace clenched his hands into fists, which ignited an instant later. There was no time to worry. Either the devil stayed with him or it didn't. He rolled his shoulders. "Shoot me if I don't."

"Portgas—"

Ace rounded the corner. Instantly, ten rifles lifted and aimed at his head, the soldiers trying to crack the door abandoning the effort at the mere hint of trouble. Ace took in the white uniforms, the hostile gazes, and the unmistakable UBMC logos stitched on the suits' breastplates.

Luffy's face flashed through his head accompanied by a lightning-quick jolt of the fear he'd felt reading about that explosion. He cocked his fist and then brought it forward with a roar.

A torrent of flames far greater than anything Ace had expected burned up the distance to the marines before any of them could react. A few screamed, backpedaling as their standard-issue suits blared heat warnings. Ace shot forward, loosing another wave to keep them distracted. The nearest marine was on his back when Ace reached him. Ace put his hands on either side of the soldier's helmet and willed his hands to get as hot as they could. Golden lines of heat traced down his veins and gathered on his palms. The marine screamed, writhing under Ace's grip. The reinforced material of his helmet began to hiss and bubble. Then the marine went still. The whole process took only a few seconds.

Ace picked up the man's rifle, newly solid hands hands finding their grip. As Ace's earlier flames cleared, Ace sighted up his targets.

The hardware rifle kicked against his shoulder, spitting out lethal round after lethal round. Each marine got a double tap to the facemask. The first bullet cracked the masks; the second, if the first didn't, finished them off. Once their confusion gave way to reflex, the marines began firing back, but their bullets just passed through Ace. The devil howled, its fury making the air in the hallway shimmer with heat.

"Ace!"

Ace glanced behind him, gun still ready, only to see the Assistant standing a yard away with his hands in the air. Ace lowered the gun. Smoke and steam wafted in the air, turning the hallway hazy. Sweat streaked Ace's skin.

"You got them all," the Assistant said. "You can relax now."

Glancing around, Ace realized that yes, all the marines were dead. He exhaled. How long had he just been standing there?

He shook his head and coaxed the devil back beneath his skin. The flames receded. Ace kept the rifle, though, swapping out its spent magazine for a fresh one off a nearby body.

"Our friend?" he asked. The Assistant shook his head.

Inside the armory, Ace took in racks and racks of weapons, suits, and various other implements of mayhem. Behind him, the Assistant closed the door, the warped metal groaning, and locked it.

"There's a secret exit in the back," he explained. "Several evacuation plans use this room as a fallback point."

Ace looked around. There was no one else here, which could only mean that the other people supposed to be here hadn't made it. He squared his shoulders.

"Where's my stuff?"

The Assistant, already halfway into an aisle, pointed to his right. "Section D, rack four."

Ace found his stuff. The Revolutionaries had even patched up his half-slagged suit, even if the colors didn't quite match. He also nabbed a change of clothes from the piles of shirts and shorts. Apparently, the Revolutionaries had a uniform…of sorts. Probably just for the grunts. Or it was safer to have stock clothing than to let members do shopping in Mainline.

Newly armed and armored, Ace found the Assistant back by the entrance, where a new group of marines was trying to break through the doors. So far, the metal was holding.

"We can't let them take the armory," the Assistant said. "The last thing we want to do as Revolutionaries is provide the UBMC with cutting-edge weaponry. Did you grab everything you needed?"

"Yeah." The clothes were safely tucked inside his jumpsuit, and everything else was back in its proper place. He felt whole again.

"Good. We're blowing the place."

* * *

_**Please review.**_


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 21**

_Ace_

"We're _what_?" Surely he misheard.

"I just said. They can't get the resources in this room. The only way to make sure they don't is to destroy it."

"The munitions in here will destroy this whole base. I dunno if you've noticed, but we're included in that."

A distant boom rattled the shelves. The Assistant turned away from the door and headed towards a rack of explosives. "I am well aware. There's a way out with a ship that we can reach in a couple of minutes. Everyone in this base knows what to do in the event of an attack. The plans always include detonating things here. We're the only ones who made it. Thus," he began priming a timed explosive, and it beeped when it was ready, "we have to be the ones to do it."

Ace caught a glimpse of the time on the bomb. "That's not a lot of leeway."

The Assistant set the bomb back on the shelf. The timer ticked down. "Any leeway for us is also leeway for the UBMC. Come on; we no longer have time to waste."

With one last glance at the rack of explosives, Ace shook his head and followed the Assistant to the back of the armory. There, the Assistant carefully inputted a passcode, using his shoulder to block Ace's sight, into a keypad neatly hidden by a cover. Ace rolled his eyes; it wasn't like knowing the passcode would help him after the bomb went off. A trapdoor near the Assistant's feet hissed open. Ace stared down into the pitch-black hole, déjà vu momentarily holding him still.

"What are you waiting for?" the Assistant asked. "Get down there."

Scowling, Ace put on his helmet, put his hands on either side of the ladder, and slid down. His suit flipped to night vision, amplifying the soft green emergency lights on the sides of the chute. His HUD flashed a warning that there was no ship connection found, which Ace ignored.

He hit the bottom after about ten seconds and stepped out of the way so the Assistant didn't land on his head.

"Where are we heading now?"

"Hangar. There's a small emergency one at the end of this tunnel. Stay in front."

"You still don't trust me?"

"That's not it. Go, Portgas. Or do you want to keep wasting time by arguing?"

Ace bit his tongue and ran down the hall, the Assistant keeping pace right behind him. If he wasn't careful, the top of his helmet scraped the low ceiling, and his shoulders had scant inches of room between the walls on either side.

At the end of the corridor stood a door. Ace skidded to a stop, boots sliding on the dusty, gravel-coated ground. The Assistant pulled up next to him—the tunnel widened out just enough to permit it in front of the door—and hesitated.

"What's the matter?" Ace asked. "I thought we were in a hurry."

The Assistant turned away and held up one hand in an obvious sign to wait. "Someone is broadcasting on all Revolutionary channels."

Ace stiffened. Nothing good happened when someone broadcasted on all channels. "What are they saying?"

The Assistant's shoulders dropped.

"Hey. What are they saying? What's going on? I don't know what frequencies you guys use."

The Assistant flinched and then shook his head. The transmission was over. "Orbital bombardment," he said.

"What?"

The Assistant lifted his head. "They're not here for prisoners or information. They're here to wipe us out. The strike teams have all pulled out; they were only here to cripple our escape ships and take whatever they could in that brief window. They don't want anyone getting away."

"How long?"

"I don't know. This person just heard one of the teams mention it before they died."

Ace yanked open the door. It squealed, its bottom scraping on the rock floor. "Then we'd better move."

As the Assistant had promised, there was a hidden hanger beyond the door. Inside was a single ship, an F20, five years out of date but still more than serviceable and perfect for a quick getaway under fire. Ace took note of the IPEC logo on the side.

"Did you steal this?" he asked as they ran up the cargo bay ramp.

"Don't worry about it."

The cargo door groaned shut while the Assistant slid into the pilot's chair. Ace hesitated before he dropped into the copilot's seat. "Any word on that orbital bombardment?"

"No. We'll be finding out the hard way if we're too late."

Ace wrapped tense fingers around his seat's armrests. "Great."

The Assistant ran abbreviated checks, a step required for ships that had been idling for too long, and then eased them into the air. Ace forced himself to relax. Either they made it or they didn't. Being a twitchy mess wouldn't change anything.

The hangar doors trundled open. Even the Assistant was feeling the encroaching deadline now; he was leaning forward in his seat, helmet turning ever so slightly as he switched his attention from window to monitor and back again.

When the doors were open wide enough, the Assistant wasted no time. Ace slammed into the back of his seat, the breath leaving him with a gasp. The ship jerked as the Assistant was similarly thrown back, but he recovered quickly and aimed them at the stars. Ace's gaze drifted higher. As the shaking eased up with the atmosphere, he twisted in his seat to look back at the base.

"God," he whispered.

"What is it?" the Assistant asked.

Ace could only stare. UBMC ships painted the sky like clouds. Giant, hulking bruisers of assault craft mixed with darting F-series dogfighters that made continual low passes over the base, hunting for escapees. He'd never seen this many ships in one place before. If they were noticed—

"Stealth shielding is holding," the Assistant muttered. Ace raised an eyebrow. _That_ wasn't standard. "But it's only a matter of time until they realize that their equipment is identifying a null point when it should be identifying nothing but air."

The ships began to scatter. Ace reported everything he saw, muscles straining to hold him steady as the Assistant increased their speed to compensate for the thinning atmosphere. As the haze of air cleared into the vacuum of space, he saw it: the destroyer. Its shadow completely eclipsed the base below, its arrowhead shape laden with armor-piercing weapons.

"I thought that thing was a myth," Ace said.

"Apparently not."

The bottom of the ship released a burst of smoke. _Missiles_, Ace realized. They hurtled towards the planet's surface, towards the base cleverly hidden among thought-to-be-collapsed mines. Even as far up as it was, their ship could easily display the explosions on its monitors.

Two ships peeled off from the horde, and Ace tensed.

"They noticed us."

"Too late for them," the Assistant said. He finished punching in their coordinates, and slipspace closed in around them.

Ace fell back into his chair, then cleared his throat in an attempt to hide his stumble. "Where are we headed?"

"We're jumping to the emergency rendezvous point." The Assistant checked a scanner. "No pursuit. I'll stay here. Take some time to clean up; IPEC would've modified this ship with a hygiene suite."

"They are sticklers about that," Ace acknowledged. "Fine. Let me know if anything happens."

"Will do."

* * *

After stripping off his jumpsuit and throwing on the spare mercifully clean and unburnt clothes, Ace ran a hand through his hair, only to pause halfway through. Frowning, he pulled a bunch of strands out and nearly crossed his eyes in an effort to examine them. He glanced around and found a semi-reflective surface. He didn't look nearly as dirty as he should, all things considered. Ace combed through his hair. It was greasy, yes, and speckled with dried blood and other residue, but not even close to the extent he expected.

Narrowing his eyes, Ace concentrated and turned his hair to fire for just a second. When the strands settled back into place, they were as clean as they'd ever been. Now curious, Ace hunted around until he found a streak of oil on the sealed ramp door that made up the back of the cargo bay. He rubbed a part of his shirt against it until there was a noticeable mark on the shirt. Then Ace combusted his torso, which took some of his shirt with it. When everything settled back into place, the blood was gone.

Apparently, he could burn away foreign elements. Nice. No more laundry.

"We're going to have to detour," the Assistant called from the cockpit. "This trip will take a while."

"Does the autopilot really need you to look over it?" Ace replied.

"Better safe than sorry."

"We're in dead space. Relax a little." Ace thought he heard the Assistant mutter something, but he couldn't be sure. There was movement, and then the Assistant emerged from the cockpit. Ace ticked an eyebrow. "And you can take off your jumpsuit. I've got the temperature thing well under control, I can assure you."

"Hm?" the Assistant reached up, gloved fingers resting against the helmet. "Ah, I forgot. It's become habit to wear this around you."

"Make a change," Ace said. "Gotta admit, I really wanna see your face. I've been guessing this whole time."

"Oh?" The Assistant began releasing the seals, which created soft hisses when they opened. "What do you picture?"

Ace crossed his arms and leaned against the projector pilon jutting up from the floor in the middle of the cargo bay. The end of it pressed against his hip. It was pretty useless now; there weren't any supply organization plans for the hold to project. "Honestly? You speak like some kind'a noble. I picture you as some strapping young man who got roped into deskwork, and taking care of me was your big break. Brown hair, white skin, probably had corrective eye surgery at some point."

The Assistant undid the last seal and laughed. "You…are fairly far from the truth, there."

"Prove me wrong."

The Assistant lifted the helmet. "Fortunately, this time I can."

The helmet came off. The Assistant tucked it under one arm and smiled with very white teeth. Ace stared, the old whip-fury feeling stirring, except a tide of familiarity overtook it. The blond hair, the blue eyes, the cocky grin—Ace had seen it all before.

But that was impossible.

"Well?" the Assistant asked. His left iris was somewhat distracting for Ace, as the blue color had turned milky, and the skin around the eye was heavily scarred. Ace recognized that kind of scar; the Assistant had been in a fire. A bad one. Ace was willing to bet that the scarring covered much more than just his face. If he looked, he could see it winding down past the beginning of the Assistant's suit. "Am I the strapping young man you expected, Portgas?"

"Younger than I thought," Ace admitted, stifling whatever crap his mind was throwing at him now. "How old are you?"

"A bit of a personal question, there."

Ace didn't budge.

"Twenty-two. We are the same age, if I'm not mistaken."

A coincidence. "Funny. I had you pegged at twenty-five."

The Assistant shrugged and began the process of removing his jumpsuit. "I blame my upbringing, what little of it I remember."

"Were you raised a noble?"

The Assistant hesitated, sighed, and finished pulling himself out of his jumpsuit. "Something like that."

While the Assistant hung up his jumpsuit by Ace's, Ace considered his next question. "This entire time, you've just been 'the Assistant' to me. What's your actual name?"

The Assistant turned back around, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. "You're rather curious. Getting greedy now that you've seen my face, are you?"

"Neither my sanity nor my life is currently at risk. Besides, we've fought together now."

"I suppose you have a point. My name is Sabo. It's—Portgas?"

One coincidence was just that. Another was happenstance. And a third? A third was proof. Ace's thoughts flattened out into a line and his fist was flying through the air an instant later. The Assistant's polite confusion didn't even have time to leave his face, and he hit the floor hard, holding his cheek, eyes wide with shock.

"What are you—"

"Shut up," Ace said. He realized he was burning, and struggled against himself to reign in the flames. They receded, barely, and in that time the Assistant struggled to his feet. "This whole time, I suspected—I _knew_ something wasn't right about you. About the way you spoke, the way you carried yourself, the way you said my name."

"I don't understand," the Assistant said slowly. He was sliding towards the lockers, towards his staff. Ace shot a single burning bullet from his fingertip to halt him in his tracks. The pieces fit so well. He was an idiot for not seeing it sooner.

"You don't understand," Ace repeated. "You don't understand, standing there, staring at me." He lowered his hand. "Alive."

The Assistant raised his hands. "Look, I don't know what is going through your head, but this really is not the time for a fight—"

"The hell it isn't!" Ace shouted, slamming his fist down on the projector. The metal dented, the sound echoing in the small space, and a few of the glass decals on the side shattered, spreading shards across the floor. "You're _alive_, you asshole!"

"I don't—"

Ace strode forward, grabbed the Assistant by the collar with a bleeding fist, and pulled him close. "Look me in the eye," Ace growled, "and tell me you still don't understand. That you don't remember anything."

"Portgas—"

Ace slammed his other fist into the metal wall directly next to Sabo's head, and Sabo broke eye contact.

"_Look at me_, Sabo," Ace hissed. Sabo did, eyes wide and confused. Genuinely confused. "Do you really not remember?"

All at once, Sabo's expression cooled. His knee slammed into Ace's groin and then, when Ace's grip around his collar loosened, he batted Ace's hand away with his left hand and punched Ace hard across the jaw with his right. Stars exploded in Ace's vision and he staggered, lost his balance, and fell. Pieces of glass cut into his arms, but this time, the skin merely turned to flame. When Ace got his wits back, he saw Sabo standing over him, eyes hard.

"Look," Sabo said, "I don't know what you want from me. I do not know you beyond our time together in the cells. Whoever you think I am, I am not. I suggest you get ahold of yourself before we land."

Ace stared, speechless. A myriad of emotions battled for control of his voice, and raw pain won out.

"I'm your _brother_," he said, voice cracking. This man—this man, he was—everything about him—he _had_ to be, or Ace was going crazy. "God dammit, Sabo, the treehouse on Goa Island, digging for ship scrap in the Gray Terminal, Luffy—you seriously don't remember any of it?"

Sabo's expression, for a horrifying second, didn't change. Then his eyes scrunched just slightly, his brow began to furrow, and his lips—his lips parted, confusion now painting over everything.

"I—" Sabo started, lost for words.

His eyes widened, then rolled up in his head as he collapsed. Ace, scrabbling on the glass-coated floor, barely caught him before he hit the ground. He hastened to check Sabo's vitals. Was he injured? No. Just out cold.

Ace, supporting his brother's neck, carefully arranged Sabo in one of the seats lining the walls. Sabo's head lolled a bit, but there wasn't anything Ace could do about that. He sank into a crouch and took the moment of peace to look at Sabo—to really look at him, to compare him to the boy he remembered. Sabo's frizzy hair had grown into smooth waves that framed his face. The scars were new to Ace, but old on Sabo's skin. When Ace'd had him by the throat, he hadn't seen that old gap in his teeth, either. The blue was the same. The staff, too. Ace stood and brushed a lock of hair out of Sabo's face.

"You better have one hell of an explanation for this."

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_**Please review.**_


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